Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi
by Dark Day For Anime
Summary: The surviving senshi are transported to the planet Wyccfaer, the heart of the universal web, to stop Chaos from rising once more.
1. Part 1: Skipped on the Winds of Time

Title: Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi Part 1  
  
Author: Dark Day For Anime (Mark A Page)  
  
Email: darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
Fic Rating: R  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI  
  
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so  
  
these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. You  
  
know who they are! They're the ones that run around doing bad   
  
things to the original cast. ^_^ Well, most of them, anyway.  
  
Part One  
  
Skipped on the Winds of Time  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Usagi found herself lying in a double bed, within a strange  
  
room. And everything was dark.  
  
Well, not entirely dark. There were streetlights shining  
  
through the window. There were noises, too. Comforting noises  
  
of civilisation, coming from both outside the window, and just  
  
on the other side of the door, on the opposite side of the room.  
  
A hotel, she thought to herself. I'm in a hotel suite. Now  
  
all I have to do is work out WHY I'm here. And where here is.  
  
She slipped out of the bed, and noticed she was wearing   
  
nothing more than her underwear. She looked around for some sign  
  
of her other garments, but there were none to be seen.  
  
Opposite the bed was another door. Gently, she padded across  
  
the soft, carpeted floor and opened the door. A bathroom. That was  
  
about all. She switched on the light to the room. A small,   
  
flickering bar light came to life above the mirror. On one side was  
  
a shower with adjoining tub, on the other a toilet. And there still  
  
weren't any clothes anywhere to be seen.  
  
She switched off the light and turned back into the main room.  
  
To her left, in the direction of the window, was a small table   
  
sitting next to the room's television and fridge. There was only  
  
one chair to the table. She shook her head, then turned the other  
  
way.  
  
By the door, which was set off the main room slightly by the   
  
bathroom wall, was a suitcase rack. She stepped up and looked  
  
around the corner, but there were no suitcases there.  
  
She sighed in frustration. Without clothing, she couldn't  
  
just walk out and ask anyone where she was. She plodded over and  
  
sat on the end of the bed. Her eyelids felt heavy. She wanted to  
  
sleep. She felt she could sleep for eternity.  
  
And that was what she feared the most. She felt that, if she  
  
fell asleep now, she WOULD sleep for an eternity. Rubbing tired   
  
eyes, she forced herself to stand and walk over to the window.  
  
Outside was a street. A main street. With cars running back  
  
and forth. To her left was an intersection. Cars would slow down,  
  
stop, and leave intermittently. Why was she so fascinated with this  
  
scene? After all, this could be anywhere in Tokyo.  
  
Only it couldn't be. Not now. Tokyo was dead. The Tokyo she  
  
remembered. And so should she be.  
  
The body had given birth to another that carried the soul of  
  
Serenity. One that called itself Usako. But the mind could not go  
  
with that body, and so a fusion had to occur... One that would only  
  
be successful if both parties were willing....  
  
Somehow, it seemed like a dream to her. She pressed her hands  
  
against the window and felt the cold.... The night air tearing the  
  
heat from the glass. She stepped back, rolling her now-cold fingers  
  
and thought of Mamoru, and how she killed him.  
  
There was nothing to think about. All the memories were   
  
there, but the emotional attachments were gone. It was like there   
  
had been no relationship at all. The same happened when she thought  
  
of the senshi... All those who died, all those who tried to kill   
  
her. But they couldn't have, because she was alive. She was here.  
  
She was now.  
  
She might as well have been another person, for all the effect  
  
those memories had on her.  
  
She was on the third floor, wherever she was. She leaned as  
  
close to the window as she possibly could, pressing her face hard  
  
against the glass. Trying to see.... Down the street, either way.  
  
What could she see? Nothing. Nothing that would be out of place.  
  
No landmark that she could recognise. In fact, the entire street  
  
was bland and sterile. Businesses and Department Stores. And they,  
  
too, were bland and sterile. None of the visual razzmatazz one  
  
normally came to expect from commercial entities.  
  
No, everything on this street looked functional. Like they  
  
had been designed merely for the purposes of distribution, rather  
  
than the experience of shopping.... of doing business.  
  
Usagi looked for a latch on the window. In most modern   
  
hotels, the windows didn't open. One too many leapers had mitigated  
  
the dubious pleasure of fresh air through a hotel window. Much to  
  
her surprise, there was a latch. She pulled the handle aside and  
  
felt the frame click open, slightly. She pushed the window forward,  
  
its hinges making it open upwards and....  
  
The building across the road reached out to her, claws lashing  
  
out with hungry abandon. She let out a short cry and pulled the  
  
window shut, jumping back.  
  
Nothing had changed. The view from the window was exactly the  
  
same as it had been before. Usagi stood, staring at that view for  
  
several long moments, before approaching the window again.  
  
She took hold of the latch, pulling it aside again, and once  
  
more, she felt the frame come loose, ready to open. Rather than   
  
push it quickly, she slowly made a gap in the base, peering through.  
  
Visions of hell awaited her. Outside lay not a normal   
  
streetscape, but a biomechanical monstrosity. The sky was an ebbing  
  
orange and black. The buildings pulsated with life, tubes filled   
  
with liquids of some description running down from their rooves.  
  
The street was like a railway of giant teeth and bone, along  
  
which ran cars that looked more like a cross between arachnids and  
  
rhinoceros beetles.  
  
In the walls of the buildings, inserted almost at random, were  
  
hundreds of black, unblinking eyes. She could feel them watching  
  
her.... Predatory... Hungry...  
  
She shut the window and locked it. Once more, the outside  
  
world returned to its peaceful, domestic normality. She shivered  
  
and pulled the curtains across. She wanted out of this place,   
  
wherever it was.... She wanted OUT of it.  
  
The phone rang. It made her jump, since she hadn't noticed it  
  
before. It sat on a small table beside the bed, next to the clock  
  
radio. She stared at it as it rang through close to twenty times,  
  
and she got the feeling that it wasn't going to stop until she   
  
answered it.  
  
She stepped up to it, picked up the receiver, and answered  
  
softly. "Hello?"  
  
"Go back to sleep, you fool." The phone went dead. Usagi  
  
stared the the earpiece and shook her head.  
  
"Easy for you to say." She put the phone down and sat on the  
  
end of the bed. Only one thing she could do, now. She stared at  
  
the entrance door, biting her lip. Regardless of whether she had  
  
next to no clothes on, the only way out was through that door. Then  
  
and only then was she going to get any answers.  
  
She stood and walked to the door, placing her hand on the   
  
doorknob. She snatched it away. It was as hot as Hades.  
  
She looked at her hand, expecting it to be seriously burnt.  
  
But it was fine.... No pain at all, the skin unblemished. She  
  
looked back at the doorhandle, dubiously. Someone, or something,  
  
was doing their level best to make sure she stayed in this room.  
  
She turned back to the bed, studying the bedclothes. After a  
  
few moments of thought, she plodded over and grabbed the blanket   
  
cover off, wrapping it around her hand. Then, going back to the  
  
door, she took hold of the doorknob again with her insulated hand.  
  
She could feel the heat, but this time it wasn't so bad. She  
  
turned the hand and...  
  
...Was thrown back against the suitcase rack. She landed   
  
rather painfully on her tailbone, and spent several moments making  
  
strange groaning noises through gritted teeth. The blanket cover  
  
fell from her hand as she reached back, touching the base of her  
  
spine.  
  
The phone rang again. She looked aside, frustrated. She  
  
jumped off the rack and stepped across the room, answering the phone  
  
rather less than nervously this time.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
"I said go back to sleep! Is that instruction a little hard   
  
for you to grasp?"  
  
"Who is this, anyway? What do you want?"  
  
Too late. The phone went dead once more, and Usagi slammed   
  
the receiver on the hook rather too harshly. She'd had enough of   
  
this game. She marched back to the door and began to slam her fists  
  
against it.  
  
"Hello? Somebody! Anybody! Get me out of here! Please!   
  
Help me!" The phone began to ring once more. She ignored it and   
  
started thumping the door with both her fists, her voice getting  
  
louder and louder.  
  
Then she was grabbed from behind. She let out a cry as she  
  
felt herself being dragged from the door, through the wall and into  
  
the bathroom, where she was unceremoniously dumped into the bathtub.  
  
She looked up just in time to get a faceful of cold water. She  
  
shrieked and thrashed around in protest until she was thoughroughly  
  
soaked, then the water stopped.  
  
She lay there, dripping wet, as water trickled down the drain,  
  
listening to the sound of the ringing phone. She did this for close  
  
to an hour. And the phone just kept ringing.... She'd managed to  
  
tolerate its sound for that length of time before it began to play  
  
on her senses.  
  
She let out a strangulated cry and bundled herself from the  
  
bathtub, back through the bathroom door, across the room and   
  
answered the phone.  
  
"Just WHO THE FUCK are you?"  
  
"Don't you like me?"  
  
Usagi spluttered. "ANSWER THE QUESTION!"  
  
"I've tried to make you nice and warm, but you reject my   
  
efforts." She laughed.  
  
"Of course I reject them. Where am I? Who are you?"  
  
"You hate me! I knew you would! All the other rooms said  
  
we'd be good together, but I had this feeling. Well, that's it.  
  
I'm not tolerating a guest like you staying in me. Get out!"  
  
And with that, Usagi found herself being hurled out through   
  
the now-open entrance door.  
  
----o  
  
The township of Kushada was one of the largest new settlements  
  
on mainland Honshu, roughly thirty miles south-west of Shin Kobe. A  
  
land-developer who happened to have survived the Cataclysm had made   
  
the town his personal plaything. After all, it wasn't everyday that   
  
you were given the opportunity to build an entire community from   
  
scratch.  
  
The main street of Kushada was fairly busy for a town of some  
  
fifteen thousand people.... Not many when one compared it to the  
  
reborn old cities, but considering the town had become something of  
  
an economic hub, not entirely unsurprising. The street was   
  
certainly at its best at night, when all of its establishments were  
  
lit up, as it was now.  
  
The large, black transport rumbled down the main street. It  
  
was eyecatching as it passed by, but then, it was designed to be.  
  
"Functional and attractive", had been the motto of the Sakura   
  
engineering company for the SK 3700K. And that it was. Like a  
  
cross between a truck and a sportscar, it turned many an   
  
appreciative eye, mostly due to the common knowledge of its price  
  
tag.  
  
The transport stopped in front of the town medical centre, an  
  
institution that had been set up almost immediately post-Cataclysm  
  
to handle the wounded. Now its place in the main street could only  
  
be described as questionable.  
  
Made mostly out of woodframe and weatherboard, its initial  
  
construction materials were the wreckage of other buildings. Ever  
  
since that time, it had been added on to, until it outgrew   
  
reasonable planning standards.  
  
A group of youths, who were standing outside a bar on the   
  
opposite side of the street watched as the doors of the transport  
  
glided open like wings. They wolf-whistled as a young woman   
  
emerged. Attractive and slim, with straight black hair and pale  
  
skin, dressed in a simple minidress, she turned to them and flashed  
  
a smile.  
  
They all turned and walked into the bar as quickly as they  
  
could. She almost laughed. One of these days, one of them was   
  
going to have the balls to take her on. They wouldn't last very  
  
long... but it would make an amusing change.  
  
"Are you finished scaring off the guys, Hotaru?" Said the  
  
husky-voiced woman from the back seat. Hotaru turned to Makoto  
  
and shrugged.  
  
"I don't know. Should I be?"  
  
"Some of them were good looking, too. I can never travel  
  
anywhere with you and meet the guys, can I?"  
  
"You do a pretty good job of scaring them off, yourself.  
  
You and your "old boyfriend" complex." Hotaru chuckled. Makoto  
  
shook her head and stepped out of the transport. She wore her  
  
hair short, these days. She'd long grown tired of trying to  
  
maintain long hair. Unlike Hotaru, she was dressed in a heavy,  
  
thick coat that covered a simple blue dress. It wasn't often  
  
that Makoto would wear dresses, these days. She hated them. But  
  
one had to keep up appearances when one was out visiting the   
  
savages.  
  
"Are you fighting again, Hotaru-oneechan? Mako-oneechan?"  
  
Umi stepped out of the car, looking from Hotaru to Makoto. Now,  
  
at thirteen, Umi was already quite tall. Her long, slightly wavy  
  
blue hair ran down low, and she was dressed in a loosely flowing  
  
black dress. It was the first time they had taken Umi on one of  
  
their little mercy jaunts, and she was enjoying the visits.  
  
Of course, the downside to all this was the fact that they  
  
had to leave Setsuna behind. Even though she was only a year  
  
younger than Umi, the girl had proven to be somewhat willful, and  
  
they preferred it that she remain with Arachne until their return.  
  
All the same, Umi was beginning to display some worrying   
  
signs, herself.... One being an undue fascination with her dream  
  
powers. Arachne didn't seem overly fussed, saying this was only  
  
natural for someone who was going to become a Water Miko. But it  
  
was altogether too much like her previous lives for Hotaru or   
  
Makoto. Even Usako worried sometimes, and Usako wasn't usually  
  
one for worrying....  
  
Usako stepped from the front passenger seat and turned to the  
  
single light that was on, out the front of the medical centre. She  
  
folded her hands across her front and sighed, shaking her long,   
  
silver-white hair, worn down. CereCere stepped out from the back,  
  
next to her. The pair looked like bookends, wearing long, floral  
  
one-piece dresses. The only difference was that CereCere had   
  
maroon-red hair. CereCere's facial features were strangely similar  
  
to Usako's, something that often lead to some confusion about their  
  
origins.... CereCere had to protest, once too often, that she was  
  
not an Usagi clone.  
  
"I see why they call it the patchup house." CereCere sniffed.  
  
"Its an architectural dog's breakfast."  
  
"It is also the oldest building in town. One must expect   
  
these things." Usako sighed. "We promised them we would call upon  
  
them. Now we must make good our promise." Usako turned to   
  
CereCere. "Before we attract too big a crowd." She nodded past the  
  
redhead at a small but growing crowd, watching them on the footpath.  
  
CereCere shrugged and turned to Makoto, peering across the   
  
roof of the passenger section. "Mako-chan, can you and Hotaru bring  
  
in our bags. Usako and I shall meet with the director of the   
  
centre."  
  
"Aww, you get all the easy jobs." Makoto scratched her nose.  
  
"It is because I have a basic understanding of social decorum.  
  
Do you remember the time I allowed you to negotiate accomadation on  
  
Onyx?"  
  
"Yeah yeah yeah, alright. No need to push the old stories   
  
about." Makoto pointed to the box-like rear of the transport and  
  
nodded to Umi. "Come on, then, show a bit of initiative."  
  
Usako turned to CereCere. "Are we going?"  
  
"Unn." CereCere nodded, and the pair stepped up to the front  
  
door, CereCere waving Usako in.  
  
The front hall was rather more impressive than they imagined  
  
it would be. A simple reception desk with office behind, with new  
  
carpet and softly painted, pastel coloured walls running down a long  
  
corridor. The office was empty, so they waited for someone to pay  
  
attention to the door buzzer.  
  
"By the way..." Usako looked at CereCere. "What did happen  
  
on Onyx?" CereCere smiled, knowingly.  
  
"Mako-chan got a little miffed after the owner of a hotel   
  
refused us accomadation. We were off the planet in no time to avoid  
  
having to pay compensation for the damage caused."  
  
Usako chuckled. "Hell hath now fury like a senshi scorned."  
  
They both turned as an elderly man in a white medical coat,   
  
shirt and trousers stepped out from the nearest room along the   
  
hallway. He smiled and held out his hand as he approached them.  
  
"Ah. The famous healer, Usako. A pleasure to meet you, my   
  
dear." He shook Usako's hand, and she smiled sweetly. "I'm Kameju  
  
Gennosuke, the director of the centre."  
  
"Pleased to meet you, Doctor Kameju." She turned to CereCere.  
  
"This here is one of my entourage, CereCere Paridis."  
  
CereCere smiled. "Hajimemashite." She bowed slightly.   
  
Kameju smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Paridis."  
  
Usako gestured to the door. "We have further members of our  
  
party handling our luggage outside. Where are we to stay?"  
  
"Ah yes...." Kameju nodded. "Follow me." He gestured down  
  
the corridor and moved on his way, Usako and CereCere following.  
  
"I here you ladies have been looking for a woman with two   
  
cats." Kameju looked aside as they reached a door at the end. He  
  
looked at them as he opened the door. "It was on the newsprints  
  
just last week."  
  
Usako nodded. "We're more interested in the cats themselves.  
  
We have been searching for them for years." Usako stepped through   
  
the door, which lead to a T junction. The corridor lead to either   
  
side of the building, then turned both ways. Kaneju and CereCere  
  
stepped through after them.  
  
"Why are the cats so important?"  
  
"They simply are. The woman had taken them with her shortly  
  
after the Cataclysm. I feel she was actually searching for us, but  
  
it has been close to nine years now. They have to have gone,   
  
somewhere."  
  
"I seem to remember, some time ago, back in my home town in  
  
Hokkaido, stories of a woman who was travelling around with a pair  
  
of talking cats. What was her name again.... Kiko.. something."  
  
"Kikotsuka Aoi." CereCere said, simply. "And it is her who  
  
is important to me, not the cats."  
  
"To each their own, CereCere." Usako smiled at her, archly.  
  
----o  
  
Usagi lifted herself up from the carpeted floor of the hotel  
  
corridor, trying to shake the darkness from her mind. Every time  
  
she looked up, the world started to do little jaunts, which made her  
  
feel nauseous.  
  
She'd never been lifted up quite that rapidly, in such a brute  
  
manner, and thrown with equally brute force. Of course, she'd been  
  
beaten, zapped, smashed and all sorts of nasty things during her   
  
life, but never thrown out of a room by something that wasn't there.  
  
She finally got to her feet and stared down the corridor.  
  
It went on forever. Just an endless row of doors,   
  
disappearing into a dark, distant spot. She spun and looked the   
  
other way. The same thing. Only this way, she could see a woman,  
  
a cleaner of some description, pushing a trolley with her cleaning  
  
equipment. Her pace was slow, and Usagi could hear the sqeaking  
  
of the wheels.  
  
Usagi turned to the doorway she had been thrown through, but  
  
it was now closed. She looked down at her lack of clothing and  
  
shivered. Well, it was too late now to turn back. With a sigh, she  
  
trotted along the corridor after the woman.  
  
"Hello... I say, hello. Can you tell me where I am, please?  
  
Or, at the very least, some idea of where I can find the reception  
  
desk?"  
  
Usagi placed a hand on the woman's shoulder, and she turned.  
  
She almost had a heart attack, and took several steps   
  
backwards....  
  
The woman had no face.  
  
END OF PART ONE  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
DDFA darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
8th Mar 1998 


	2. Part 2: When the Joy is Stopped

Title: Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi Part 2  
  
Author: Dark Day For Anime (Mark A Page)  
  
Email: darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
Fic Rating: R  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI  
  
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so  
  
these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. If  
  
you vaguely know anything about Sailormoon, you'll spot them a mile  
  
off. "Ahoy there, Cap'n, I sees me an original character."  
  
"Steer clear of them, helmsman. They can be nasty when the weather  
  
turns bad."  
  
Part Two  
  
When the Joy is Stopped  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Usagi stared at the woman, and the woman stared back. Only   
  
she couldn't stare back because she didn't have any eyes to do so.  
  
Usagi freaked out, and was several metres up the hotel   
  
corridor, back against the wall on the floor, pointing at the woman.  
  
"Uhh... Uhh... Uhh..."  
  
The woman cocked her head to one side, then shrugged and   
  
turned back to her cleaners' trolley. Usagi, now calming, thought  
  
things over.  
  
"Ano..."  
  
The woman turned again, giving Usagi another view of her   
  
faceless visage. Usagi swallowed.  
  
"Can you tell me the way to reception? Or management? I seem  
  
to be lost."  
  
The woman pointed past Usagi, down the corridor.  
  
"Ah, thankyou."  
  
The woman then turned and pointed the other way.  
  
"Ano..." Usagi blinked a couple of times. "Do you mean....   
  
It's both ways?"  
  
The woman nodded.  
  
"Which way is quicker?"  
  
The woman pointed past Usagi, down the corridor.  
  
"Ah, thankyou."  
  
The woman then turned and pointed the other way.  
  
Usagi facefaulted. This was going to be a great deal more   
  
difficult than she thought.  
  
----o  
  
Kameju watched as the woman who had been tossing and turning,  
  
in the throws of fever, quietened at the merest touch of Usako's  
  
hand.  
  
Usako had closed her eyes, and was whispering a soft and   
  
gentle chant. Kameju shook his head, almost disbelieving.  
  
"It's... incredible. That woman has been burning up with a  
  
virulent strain of influenza for close to three days, now...."  
  
He noticed CereCere and Makoto had taken a full step back,  
  
and sweatdropped. "If you haven't caught it now, you never will."  
  
They giggled nervously. "Yeah, I think that passed through  
  
Crystal Towers some time ago.... Good six months back...." Makoto  
  
muttered, hopefully.  
  
Usako turned, her eyes open, smiling. "She shall recover in a  
  
day's time. Where is the next patient?"  
  
Kaneju gestured with his hand to the doorway. "A young boy,  
  
about seven years old. He was badly injured in a gang attack on one  
  
of the outlying properties."  
  
Usako nodded and followed Kaneju from the room. CereCere   
  
looked at Makoto for a moment, whose expression had gone sullen.  
  
"You look tired."  
  
"I feel tired. I wanna sleep for days."  
  
CereCere put a hand on Makoto's shoulder. "Don't worry. Go  
  
to our room and go to bed. Both Hotaru and myself should be able to  
  
guard Usako."  
  
Makoto sighed. "I feel so useless, sometimes."  
  
"Now I know you're tired. You always start putting yourself  
  
down when you get tired. Go - to - bed." CereCere patted Makoto on  
  
the cheek, and the larger woman smiled, nodding.  
  
----o  
  
Usagi had wandered for what seemed like hours. There simply   
  
wasn't an end to the corridor, nor was there anyone else in the   
  
corridor itself. She just passed by door after door that had   
  
strange symbols bolted to them rather than numbers.  
  
"Okay..." Thought Usagi to herself. "I wake up in the hotel   
  
from hell, and I get thrown out of my room by the room...." She  
  
shook her head. Even to her, the whole idea seemed ridiculous.  
  
The decor was beginning to annoy her. Gold and cream doors  
  
and walls with gleaming fittings, and a black and gold-brown carpet  
  
in a leaf-shaped pattern. And it just went on and on and on without  
  
so much as a relief.  
  
She stopped, and looked back. There was no way she could tell  
  
how far she had gone. Nor did she seem to be approaching an end.   
  
She stamped her feet, viciously. This was useless. She could walk  
  
on for the rest of her life and not get anywhere.  
  
"Excuse me...." She turned to the voice that came from the   
  
door immediately behind her. The face of a small, dark-haired young  
  
woman peered out through the gap. "Can you keep it down?"  
  
"Eh...?"  
  
"It's noisy enough in here as it is."  
  
"But...." Usagi went silent, listening. "...There is no   
  
noise." The girl rolled her eyes.  
  
"That's the problem. The silence. Silence is so LOUD. It  
  
scares me. Why does silence have to be so noisy?"  
  
Usagi sighed. "You tell me to stop making so much noise. If  
  
I do stop, then the silence shall just get louder."  
  
"Yes, but at least you won't be singing a duet. Silence and   
  
I." The young woman giggled inanely.  
  
"Ano, can I ask you a question?"  
  
"Yes, it is a perfectly reasonable theory."  
  
Usagi gritted her teeth. "Do you know how far this passageway  
  
goes in this direction?" She pointed the way she had been walking.  
  
"Aha, an existentialist conundrum. How far does any passage   
  
lead you? The paths of life are mysterious."  
  
"Ano..." Usagi sweatdropped. "How about answering the   
  
question?"  
  
"No question has a single answer. It is impossible to   
  
accurately predict what may or may not happen if one were to follow  
  
the said passage. Suffice to say, it may lead one to a destiny that  
  
one does not expect."  
  
"You're a headcase, you know that?"  
  
"Whether or not I realise the state of my psychological   
  
dilemma should really be none of your concern. It is only I who can  
  
fully comprehend my imperception of reality, and what should be done  
  
about it." The young woman stared at Usagi. "Is your imperception  
  
of reality causing you to not see things as they are?"  
  
Usagi rubbed her forehead. "Don't start asking me   
  
psychobabblic inquiries.... I've got enough problems as it is."  
  
"Then you won't achieve what you want. Sometimes our   
  
perceptions of the way things are can be influenced by what we want  
  
to see."  
  
The woman withdrew and shut the door. Usagi fell to her   
  
knees. Why did this kind of thing always happen to her?"  
  
----o  
  
Makoto lay back on the lawn, staring at the sky. She was 14  
  
again, and it felt good.  
  
Dressed only in the plain, brown school uniform she had   
  
inherited from her previous school, due to the fact that Juuban   
  
Junior High didn't have uniforms to fir her size, she felt a sense  
  
of peace that she hadn't experienced in some time.  
  
A return to what she had been.... Just plain old Kino Makoto,  
  
before Usagi had made friends with her. Before she became....  
  
She sighed. Too much water had passed under the bridge for   
  
her to totally return to this world.... Usagi was alive again, if  
  
only through the forced union of souls.... And she had forgiven  
  
Makoto for her indiscretions....  
  
The very fact that she had been so easily manipulated made her  
  
feel incredibly angry, and depressed. She could deal with an enemy  
  
that presented an obvious, physical threat. But one that chose to  
  
attack the mind.... To rape it of its memories and perceptions....  
  
She turned aside, looking away. In the distance, over several  
  
grassed hills, stood a crystal tower. her past and future, all as   
  
one. She closed her eyes.  
  
"Mako-chan...." The voice was barely strong enough to be   
  
heard over the sound of the soft breeze. Makoto opened her eyes and  
  
turned to Usagi, dressed as she was the day she first met her, lying   
  
next to her.  
  
"You again." Makoto said, simply.  
  
"Yes. Me again." She said simply, smiling.  
  
----o  
  
Usagi stared at the carpet. It didn't look like a carpet   
  
anymore. Not in the darkness that had descended upon the hotel   
  
corridor.  
  
The only light that could be seen was a simple white light,   
  
shining from what appeared to be a box above a doorway. Usagi was,  
  
however, too busy watching the patterns within the carpet ebb and   
  
flow.  
  
Like water, she thought. An endless, seething ocean. She   
  
gripped the fibres of the carpet with her hands, and watched as the  
  
pattern changed again. Her perceptions were faulted. The corridor  
  
was not as it seemed. Her mind was using a backup file of what she  
  
had expected to see. Change tack, and look up.  
  
She saw the light, and the word on the box that covered it.  
  
It said "exit".  
  
----o  
  
"The old days were kinda fun, weren't they?" Usagi smiled as  
  
she stared up at the small, white clouds that floated across the   
  
sky.  
  
"I don't know if they were any more fun than what things are  
  
like, now." Makoto shrugged.  
  
"Oh come on, Mako-chan. Two suicide attempts and a history of  
  
alcoholism isn't the kind of thing one should put aside when one is  
  
trying to rationalise personal history."  
  
Makoto closed her eyes and shivered.  
  
"And Hotaru has felt the same as you. Her experiences have   
  
been even worse. Both of you have suffered from the brutalisation  
  
that is on offer in this life. So tell me, are things as good now  
  
as they were then?" Usagi looked aside.  
  
"No." Makoto opened her eyes and returned Usagi's gaze.  
  
"And do you think things will get any better?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Look over there, Mako-chan." Usagi sat up and pointed at the  
  
crystal palace. "That is your future. And where we lie, now, shall  
  
become the streets and buildings of Crystal Tokyo. Now tell me   
  
again, are things going to get any better?"  
  
"Even if I find peace.... Shall I be able to live within it  
  
without being a disruptive influence?"  
  
Usagi shook her head. "Do you so wish for death? it doesn't  
  
clean all of the horrors of the past. Just look at Umi and Setsuna.  
  
Only just entering their teens now, and yet they have been handled  
  
brutally by those with less than savoury intent."  
  
Makoto remained silent.  
  
"I do wish you'd get your head in order, Mako-chan. Whilst  
  
Hotaru is now the leader of the Sailorsenshi, you are the only other  
  
senshi to have survived. You are more important than you realise."  
  
"I am as important as I understand myself to be. What I   
  
contribute is the raw power I have at my fingertips. Power without  
  
a purpose. An unguided missile." She sighed and sat up. For a  
  
moment, she winced and clutched her head in pain.  
  
"Does it still hurt, Mako-chan? What I did to you? What a  
  
version of me did to you?"  
  
"I... understand that, as Jupiter, my capacity to die is   
  
limited... to total evisceration."  
  
"You, Hotaru and CereCere all have the seed of eternal life  
  
within you, now. But you can still die if you don't look after  
  
yourselves."  
  
"I restate, my capacity to die is limited to total   
  
evisceration. Even if I lose a limb, it shall just grow back. A  
  
bodily organ... it will just grow back..."  
  
"A damaged brain...?"  
  
"Will just grow back."  
  
"Grow back as it used to be? Will its tender folds return to  
  
the shape and form they were, initially?"  
  
"I don't know." Makoto turned away.  
  
"You can see nothing, Makoto. No signs of any physical   
  
damage. Even if you are x-rayed, you shall find a perfectly-formed  
  
human mind. And yet, the damage to the soul that existed within it  
  
is greater than you can imagine."  
  
Makoto felt an incredible pain in the back of her head. To  
  
her horror, she could feel the sickening sensation of warm fluid  
  
running down her back. She tried to turn back to Usagi, but her  
  
motor control had disappeared. She collapsed onto her front and  
  
looked up at Usagi, beckoningly.  
  
"Please... Not again. Don't let this happen to me again..."  
  
Usagi reached forward, her hair falling out of its odangos.   
  
The hair wrapped around Makoto's body and began to seep up the   
  
blood, staining the hair a pinkish-red. Slowly, Makoto was lifted  
  
up by Usagi's arms.  
  
Makoto could see Usagi's face changing shape... To that of  
  
CereCere. The Asteroid Senshi smiled and kissed Makoto....  
  
----o  
  
Hotaru looked from her bed at Usako and Umi. The pair were  
  
fast asleep, now. It had been a long day's travelling, and after  
  
expending her powers to heal the dozen or so patients within the  
  
medical centre, Usako was exhausted.  
  
Umi had fallen asleep in Usako's arms. It made Hotaru jealous  
  
to see the affection that Usako would heap upon the sensitive girl.  
  
But pettiness had never been in her vocabulary, so she let it pass.  
  
Besides, there was a connection between both Usako and herself that  
  
none of the others would ever have.  
  
Hotaru turned to the small table that sat next to the bed.   
  
Two glasses and a bottle of sake sat there. One of the glasses had  
  
been poured and half-emptied. Half emptied into her. Probably why  
  
she was feeling so forgiving.  
  
She reached over and topped up her glass, taking it from the  
  
table, resting to rim against her lips. The soft sensation of the  
  
fluid on her lips was matched by the burning that her tongue and  
  
throat received. And that was but the merest drop. Usako had   
  
refused her offer to join her in a drink, using the old excuse that  
  
she disliked alcohol. Hotaru shook her head and wondered if the   
  
pair of them had anything in common at all....  
  
A hand reached over and picked up the bottle, filling the  
  
second glass. It put the bottle down and took the glass. Hotaru  
  
only vaguely watched this as Usashin sipped the drink, sitting on  
  
a stool that had sat beside her bed.  
  
"You never know when to move on, do you?" Hotaru sniffed.  
  
"I like to pop in every so often and see how things are going  
  
on with you people." Usashin smiled. "I did have a stake in your  
  
future. Willing enough to bet my life on it."  
  
"Yes..." Hotaru became solemn. "Yes, you did."  
  
Usashin turned to where Usako and Umi lay. "We managed to  
  
succeed in the refusing of the souls of Serenity and Usagi. But at  
  
what cost to the both of them?"  
  
Hotaru sighed. "Alright, Usashin, just what is it this time?"  
  
Usashin turned back to Hotaru, smiling. "What makes you think  
  
there is anything wtong?"  
  
"Because you're starting to talk in ominous riddles. There is  
  
always something on the cards when you do that."  
  
Usashin shook her head. "Sorry. It's just that... In my   
  
wanderings on this side of the wall, I have felt the presence of   
  
Tsukino Usagi."  
  
"Eh?" Hotaru leaned forward, putting her glass on the bedside  
  
table. "That's impossible. Usagi was put back inside the body of  
  
Usako."  
  
"Yes, it is indeed Usagi's spirit that resides within the body  
  
of Usako."  
  
"So are you trying to tell me there is more than one Usagi out  
  
there?" Hotaru winced. "Okay, okay, I KNOW there is more than one  
  
Usagi out there. What I mean is..."  
  
"Is there more than one version of the original Tsukino   
  
Usagi?" Usashin shrugged. "It is difficult to tell. There are so  
  
many Usagi spirits on this side, that I may have been mistaken.   
  
However, I am not usually that mistaken with my perceptions."  
  
Hotaru nodded, grimly. "Perhaps it is something you should  
  
look into. After all, I most certainly can't."  
  
Usashin chuckled. "The senshi of death and darkness, not able  
  
to see within the world of the dead?"  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
Usashin smiled. "By the way, Kaorusagi-dono sends you her   
  
love."  
  
Hotaru looked at Usashin for a few moments, then heard someone  
  
crying out in fear.... She jumped clean across the room as Usako  
  
and Umi were roused.  
  
"Wh.. what's going on?" Umi sat up, blearily.  
  
"That's Makoto...." Hotaru turned to them, then looked back  
  
at the stool.  
  
There was nobody there. The second glass was empty and   
  
untouched, sitting on the bedside table.  
  
----o  
  
Usagi tentatively opened the door and peered through. It was  
  
a stairwell. And the best thing about it was that the stairs and  
  
railings were....  
  
....All made of bone.  
  
Usagi shivered. Well, the sign did say "exit". All the same,  
  
she didn't like the concept of walking on a staircase made of   
  
polished bone.  
  
She stepped in to the stairwell and allowed the door to close  
  
behind her. For a few moments, she wondered whether she should go   
  
up or down. Considering the bizarre dimensions of the hotel, either  
  
way could be the right way.  
  
She decided to use logic, and go down.  
  
----o  
  
Makoto was shivering, making little keening noises from her  
  
throat, staring into space dazedly, when Hotaru entered her room.  
  
CereCere had an arm around the woman, trying to calm her.  
  
"What happened?" Hotaru stepped over and knelt down beside  
  
Makoto's bed. CereCere turned to her, helplessly.  
  
"She had another nightmare."  
  
"The same as before?"  
  
"Yes. The same as before."  
  
"Don't want that to happen again.... Oh Kami-sama, forgive me  
  
and all that I have done...." Makoto was now gasping and sobbing so  
  
heavily that Hotaru became concerned that she was going to give   
  
herself a seizure. She grabbed Makoto by the shoulders.  
  
"Mako-chan! MAKOTO! Get a HOLD of yourself."  
  
Makoto stared up into Hotaru's eyes, as if not recognising her  
  
for a few moments. Slowly, she began to calm, her face losing its  
  
panicked edge.  
  
"Makoto-oneechan?" Hotaru turned to see Usako and Umi   
  
standing in the doorway. Usako was holding Umi's shoulder.  
  
"It's alright, Umi-chan. Mako-oneechan shall be alright."   
  
Usako whispered. Umi turned to her and nodded mutely.  
  
Makoto's eyes fell on Umi, and she felt a sense of shame.   
  
"Gomen, Umi..." She said, softly. "I didn't mean to wake you up."  
  
Hotaru took a breath and stood. "I think, Makoto, that it is   
  
time you sought the guidance of someone who can help you work   
  
through this."  
  
Makoto shivered and stared at Hotaru. "I don't have a   
  
problem. Not one that should concern you."  
  
"Waking all of us with your cries DOES concern us. You now  
  
sleep in a separate building from the majority of people back in   
  
Crystal Towers because of this. It can't go on."  
  
Makoto threw off her bedcovers and stood, angrily, almost   
  
bowling CereCere aside. "I don't have a problem, do you   
  
understand?"  
  
"Mako-oneechan... Kowai..." Umi pressed herself against  
  
Usako, and Makoto looked at her, anger fading. She turned and  
  
walked up to the far wall, leaning her head against it. Hotaru  
  
looked from her to the others.  
  
"CereCere, can you go with Usako and Umi. I'd like to have a  
  
few words with Makoto..."  
  
CereCere nodded and stood, stepping over and guiding Usako and  
  
Umi from the room. Hotaru turned to Makoto, who was now softly   
  
banging her head against said wall.  
  
"Stop that, you stupid girl. It isn't going to make things   
  
any better."  
  
"Sorry. I'm sorry." Makoto didn't turn. "How many times do  
  
I have to keep saying sorry for everything I've done? Every time I  
  
turn, someone is demanding an apology. And it's sorry sorry sorry.  
  
I don't seem capable of avoiding trouble, even if I'm not trying to  
  
cause it."  
  
"Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself. It doesn't work with   
  
me." Makoto turned to Hotaru. Hotaru huffed. "Nothing you have  
  
experienced during your time could even begin to compare with what  
  
I've endured. And do you see me falling apart?"  
  
"You WERE falling apart, until we arrived. I've heard all the  
  
stories about what you were like then."  
  
Hotaru shook her head. "And I changed, right? So why didn't  
  
you?" She put out her hand. "The rest of us can only take so much  
  
of this bullshit, Makoto. You saw the effect you had on Umi. She   
  
is only 13. As old as you were when you had your infamous 'old   
  
boyfriend.' Can you remember what you were like, then?"  
  
Makoto closed her eyes, as if restraining herself, then looked  
  
away. Silence reigned between them for several moments, when they   
  
heard noise.... Banging against the front doors of the Medical   
  
Centre. They both looked at each other for a moment. Hotaru   
  
snapped her fingers.  
  
"Makoto, get with Usako and the others, I'll go and see what  
  
that is."  
  
"But...."  
  
"No protests, just do it!"  
  
Makoto nodded, and the two of them ran from the room.  
  
----o  
  
Usagi slowly descended the stairs, nervously. The way the  
  
bone structure creaked, she thought she was going to fall through   
  
them. Eventually, she became more confident of their strength and  
  
made her way down with greater speed.  
  
And then she slowed down.... For the first time, she didn't  
  
know why she hadn't noticed it before, but the walls... were made  
  
of flesh. The melded parts of human bodies. She decided she didn't  
  
like this game, anymore. She looked up. The walls, higher, had   
  
been normal, but as they descended, the... "infection", for want of  
  
a better term, increased. Like the walls were being taken over from  
  
the base of the building by some kind of growth.  
  
A horrible thought came to Usagi. Where was this growth   
  
getting the body parts from? It was visibly obvious that the parts  
  
had all been cauterised together....  
  
All those who had used the stairs.... Being snatched one by   
  
one on higher and higher levels as the growth extended....  
  
Usagi began to back up the stairs, staring around in sickened  
  
horror at the walls.... The gleaming, congealed mass of flesh and  
  
blood seemed to be moving.  
  
It was moving. Usagi could see it, now. Like tendrils,   
  
portions of flesh were reaching out for her.... She screamed and  
  
ran for the nearest exit, at the top of the next flight of stairs.  
  
She gripped the door handle, but it was locked. She banged  
  
against it with her fist.  
  
"Help me! Somebody, help me!"  
  
She turned when she heard a squelching noise. To her horror,  
  
there stood the poorly-formed body of a young man, tendrils of flesh  
  
leading to the growth on the walls.  
  
He reached out to her, his fingers rolling lasciviously.  
  
END OF PART 2  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Next: The most bizarre Usagi clone yet. Prepare yourself for the  
  
horror that is.... SailorPuPuPu! ^_^  
  
DDFA darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
12th Mar 1998  
  
I apologise for this taking more than a week to post to ff.net....  
  
I have had about a week's worth of spinal trouble, making it  
  
difficult for me to do.... well.... anything, basically. I hope it  
  
was worth the pain and dizziness I'm feeling right about now. ^_^;; 


	3. Part 3: Weirdness in Eternal

Title: Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi Part 3  
  
Author: Dark Day For Anime (Mark A Page)  
  
Email: darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
Fic Rating: R  
  
SIU - The Sailor Investigation Unit: A Series In Desperate Need Of  
  
Comments. ^_^;;  
  
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=770955  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI  
  
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME (Mark A Page)  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so  
  
these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. If  
  
you vaguely know anything about Sailormoon, you'll spot them a mile  
  
off. "Ahoy there, Cap'n, I sees me an original character."  
  
"Steer clear of them, helmsman. They can be nasty when the weather  
  
turns bad."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Miste Kiele had a dream. She dreamt of a burning palace, of   
  
death and war and thousands of years of misery. And she dreamt that  
  
it was all her own fault.  
  
Then she dreamt of the past, of burning towns and farmlands,  
  
and of a short lifetime of misery. These events were not her fault.  
  
These events were caused by others. But they forever scarred the  
  
girl who grew up amongst them.  
  
----o  
  
Part Three  
  
Weirdness in Eternal  
  
----o  
  
Tranquility softly strode the halls of the Moon Palace. The  
  
high-walled darknesses and echoes once so familiar to her had taken  
  
on a strangely alien hue and ring.  
  
She was alone, now. Blesses peace from the days of   
  
preparation. Her inauguration as Queen was but a week away, and the  
  
travel expenses to the homeworld were under review from the finance  
  
committee. Not that she wouldn't be able to tell them where to go  
  
if they so much as barked, she was to be Queen, after all, but it  
  
annoyed her that these matters were being brought up before such an  
  
important event.  
  
Two months ago, Princess Serenity abdicated her right to the  
  
throne, under the consultation of Mercury. Serenity had left the  
  
palace to take over the position of Duchess of the Western Lands...  
  
It had been an uneasy transition since the passing of her mother.  
  
Nobody had wanted to admit to her that they thought she wasn't right   
  
for the throne. A strange process, thought Tranquility.... The   
  
senshi and miko had the right of veto over who could and couldn't   
  
become Queen.  
  
The process had worked reasonably well. As well as could be  
  
expected, all things considered. From thirteen possible candidates,  
  
the first of which being the line of Serenity, the choice of Queen  
  
of the Moon Kingdom of Sol must come.... Only once did the line go  
  
down all the way to the thirteenth candidate.... As unexpected as  
  
that was, and as imbalanced as the candidate turned out. Still, it  
  
provided the check and balance thought necessary for the stability  
  
of the Kingdom. And stability was everything.  
  
Why Mercury should have chosen to become Serenity's adviser,  
  
Tranquility had NO idea. She didn't no the Mercury senshi, Miste  
  
Kiele, all that well, and what she did know of her didn't enthuse  
  
her on cementing a relationship. But she WAS the Mercury senshi,  
  
and a relationship she HAD to forge, along with all the others.  
  
She didn't know all of them. She hadn't met many of them,   
  
just yet. There had been no reason for her, as a courtesan with the  
  
second right to the throne, to fraternise with the likes of the   
  
senshi and miko. Her chance encounters had not always been   
  
friendly. The senshi were protective of the old Queen, and often  
  
zealous when it came to guarding her. A mere stroll through these  
  
palace halls was enough to raise their suspicion. As for the   
  
miko... They remained a reclusive group, often only making   
  
appearances during festivals and holy days, and never all together.  
  
She knew Ares Palisan well, and Scylla Matash. Boy, did she know  
  
Scylla Matash!  
  
The First Refrain Water Miko was well known for her frequent  
  
complaints. She was an habitual malingerer, and a chronic pedant.  
  
If something was even slightly wrong with the formalities of ritual,  
  
within the holy days of the Kingdom's calendar, you soon knew about  
  
it. And it was usually up to poor Ares to do something about it.  
  
She felt sorry for the young woman, sometimes. As the First   
  
Refrain's Fire Miko, she was often the figurehead of the entire Miko  
  
Caste, and took a lot of responsibility onto her shoulders. The  
  
vagaries of clergical duty.  
  
She stopped as she approached a fountain pool, glimmering in  
  
pale light of the sun, let through by a single skylight. The blue  
  
tiles leant a calming aquatic effect on the rippling light from the  
  
surface. Tranquility had come here more than once, her private   
  
little haven. When she had learnt of the passing of her mother, she  
  
had come here to cry. Alone. She was guarenteed to be alone,   
  
because nobody ever used these walkways.  
  
She shifted her loose, flowing robes and sat on a small ledge  
  
at the base of a pillar, staring into the pool. She wasn't sure if  
  
she had dozed off or not, nor how long she had been sitting there,  
  
because she didn't hear the approach of the figure, or was even   
  
aware of its presence, until she felt the hand on her shoulder.  
  
She turned, almost half asleep, and saw a face that convinced  
  
her she was dreaming.  
  
"N.. Naiad?" Tranquility blinked.  
  
"Hello, Tranqs." Said the blue-haired young woman, in the  
  
equally blue robes of her Miko office. "We meet again."  
  
----o  
  
The door opened behind Usagi, and she fell through onto the  
  
corridor floor beyond.  
  
"An' just what do we 'ave 'ere, then? A young ladylike,   
  
bangin' an' crashin' again' t' door. We can' 'ave this, then."  
  
Usagi looked up into the face of a burly, unshaven man in a  
  
security uniform. after this initial surprise, she turned and   
  
pointed at the "thing" that had been threatening her in the   
  
stairwell.  
  
"B.... But... There...."  
  
The man looked up from the floor at the half-formed figure,  
  
still attached to its grisly home body by its fleshy tendrils, on   
  
the stairwell wall.  
  
"Alright you, be off wiv ya, now!" The man pointed at the  
  
thing. "We can't 'ave you frightenin' the 'otel guests, can we?"  
  
It dropped its outstretched arms and looked disappointed, slowly  
  
turning and melding back into the wall.  
  
The man shut the door and helped Usagi to her feet.  
  
"I be sorry about t' stairwell. We get lots o' complainin'  
  
from t' people in t' 'otel abou' tha'. I 'ave told t' management  
  
abou' it, but do ya thin' th' bother t' do anythin' 'bout t'?"  
  
Usagi shook her head. The man sniffed and looked down at her  
  
attire, or lack of it, not with an unappreciative eye. Usagi stared  
  
back at him, dubiously.  
  
"Yon lady is no' dressed t' be runnin' roun' t' 'otel." He  
  
shook his head, chuckling. "Wha' happen' t' you now, love?"  
  
"I was kicked out of my room. Or, at least, my room kicked me  
  
out. I've been trying to find the management ever.... Hey, watch  
  
where you're putting your hands...."  
  
The man quickly whipped his right hand away from her butt,   
  
putting it behind his head, giggling.  
  
"Well lookit that. Wonder how tha' got there, now."  
  
Usagi sighed. "Who are you, anyway, Hotel Security?"  
  
He nodded. "That be wha' I am. T' best in t' 'otel. I keeps  
  
order throughou' t' enitre 'otel."  
  
Cute accent, thought Usagi. She eyed the security guard. Not  
  
only was he unshaven, he even looked unwashed. She could hardly   
  
believe that someone like this was keeping order within the bounds   
  
of the hotel. Well, it was no ordinary hotel....  
  
Still, he looked like a dirty old man, and the thought of   
  
being in the presence of such an individual whilst attired in   
  
nothing more than her undergarments was not high on her list of   
  
favourite things to do.  
  
"Uh... so... If you could just guide me to the Front Desk, or  
  
the Office of Management, I'll be on my way...." Usagi swallowed as  
  
the security guard leered at her.  
  
"Ah, I's be quite happy t' guide ya's... Umm..." He thought   
  
for a few moments, eyeing off her bust. She placed a hand across   
  
them, which caused him to avert his gaze to the ceiling. "Ya's be   
  
on t' righ' track, usin' t' stairs. If it was't for dat thing in   
  
there, I's be sure more people woul' use it. I mos' cer'ly wouldna   
  
use t' lifts."  
  
"Why?" Usagi frowned at him. He looked back down at her,   
  
smiling lopsidedly.  
  
"B'cause t' lifts be dangerous like. One NEVER use t' lifts   
  
in dis place, unnerstan'?" He leaned forward. Usagi could smell   
  
alcohol on his breath, and a few other smells besides, making her  
  
recoil with disgust.  
  
"S... so... where...?"  
  
"There be another stairs like, at t' end of dis corridor." He  
  
pointed past her. Usagi chanced a look, then quickly turned back to  
  
him.  
  
"How far is it?"  
  
"It be not far. Jus' look fer t' Activity Room. It be through   
  
thar. Bu' I warn ya's... Don' let anywho in t' Activity Room convince   
  
ya t' join dem in their games.... It can be...."  
  
"....Dangerous... Yes, I get the idea. Well... Thanks for  
  
everything." The guard nodded and Usagi backed away, keeping him in  
  
sight. Eventually, as she saw he wasn't making any moves to follow  
  
her, she turned and quickly strode along the corridor.  
  
The guard smiled and rubbed his chin.  
  
----o  
  
"You know..." Tranquility stared off into the waters of the  
  
pool. "I had a dream...."  
  
"Tell me about it." Naiad, who had sat next to her, stared at   
  
her introspective friend.  
  
"It was about a young girl. An ordinary girl, who lived in a  
  
city, very different from any we know of, or understand."  
  
"Did this girl have a name?"  
  
"I can't remember now." She thought for a few moments.   
  
"Naru, I think it was."  
  
"Naru.... A strange name."  
  
"I thought my dream may be of offworlders. But this Naru was   
  
human, like you and I."  
  
"Sometimes we interpret things in the only manner to which we   
  
are capable. You perhaps saw her as a human because you could only  
  
understand things from a human perspective."  
  
"I doubt that. Still, here I am talking about a dream I had  
  
with someone I thought I'd never see again. Strange, is it not?"  
  
Naiad smiled. "We all do strange things with the lives we are  
  
given. I abandoned life within the Academy for the Seminary."  
  
"I never would have thought..." Tranquility turned to Naiad.  
  
"...I remember that day, when you told me how you thought you'd   
  
somehow missed your calling.... And I blurted out the Miko idea to  
  
you..." She chuckled. "You seemed offended at the concept."  
  
"I was offended... But perhaps not in the way you think. You  
  
gave voice to thoughts that had been running through my mind. The  
  
forwardness of it all was what offended me... But it ultimately   
  
guided me."  
  
Tranquility shook her head. "What happened to you, after you   
  
ran away from the Academy? Everyone was so worried about you...."  
  
Naiad shrugged. "Their worries were for nothing. I follow  
  
the ways of the spirits, and they guided me."  
  
"But to where? I mean, I know you made it to the Seminary,  
  
but where did you go between then and now?"  
  
Naiad turned and leaned her head back against the column.  
  
"Where indeed. There were many places I wandered in those   
  
intervening years. Perhaps, you could say, I did it all in madness.  
  
For only the foolish or the insane would do what I did." She   
  
smiled. "I wandered. What else can I say? I lived off the   
  
kindness of others, and saw the Earth and the other worlds of this  
  
system, as they exist."  
  
"And this lead you to the Seminary?"  
  
"No. That occured entirely by accident."  
  
Tranquility sighed. "How DID you end up in the Seminary,   
  
then?" Naiad smiled, closing her eyes.  
  
"It was on Mars, I think, that I found myself joining one of   
  
the relief agencies after the earthquake of Noctis Labyrinthus. The  
  
then serving 3rd Water Miko visited the scene as part of the   
  
Palace's aid involvement. She... felt my presence, and sought me   
  
out."  
  
"I never knew the old resident of the Piscean house. I didn't  
  
know YOU were the current resident. I'm not starting my time as   
  
Queen on the right footing, am I?" Tranquility took a breath and  
  
shook her head.  
  
"Do I detect an element of self-doubt? You don't think you're  
  
the right person to take up the mantle of Queen, do you?"  
  
Tranquility didn't answer. Naiad continued.  
  
"It all seems a bit much, to have come from such an ordinary,  
  
if well-moneyed, background. To believe you are worthy of such a   
  
prize. Ever since you were divined as the successor to the line of  
  
Tranquility, you have studied, and were prepared for, this event.   
  
This eventuation. And still, you see yourself as an ordinary   
  
person."  
  
"I'm not ordinary."  
  
"Ah yes, but you SEE yourself that way. Others won't, but how  
  
they see you doesn't matter as much as how you see yourself.   
  
Because you aren't ordinary. I've known that for a very long time."  
  
Tranquility turned to her. "What do you mean?" Naiad smiled,  
  
knowingly.  
  
"Aww, come on Tranqs. We can't have shared... what we shared,  
  
and not know each other.... I've had the ability to see within the  
  
soul of people for quite a long time... The early, awakening powers  
  
of myself as a miko.... And with the relationship we had...."  
  
"H.. how much did you see?"  
  
"Not much. Enough."  
  
"How much is enough?" Naiad was surprised by Tranquility's   
  
stern tone. She turned from her almost dreamlike musings to face   
  
Tranquility's darkened expression.  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that I've seen into your   
  
deepest thoughts. At that time, I didn't have the power to do   
  
anything more than skim over the surface. See the feelings others  
  
held for me."  
  
Tranquility's expression softened, but she remained uneasy.   
  
"I never really knew how much to believe you. Not after the   
  
events... with Astute."  
  
Naiad turned away, closing her eyes for a moment as if she had  
  
been stung. "Astute, yes. I hear he is to be your consort, now."  
  
"Yes, I am going to marry Astute."  
  
"Do you want to marry Astute?"  
  
"Are you saying he won't make a good husband?"  
  
Naiad shrugged. "It is your duty to marry and produce heirs   
  
to the line of Tranquility. Astute shall be a good father to your  
  
children, I'm sure."  
  
"But you do not agree with our coupling. Is that what you're  
  
trying to say?"  
  
"Tranqs, you come from a good home. A well-moneyed home. You  
  
were never found wanting. But it wasn't an aristocratic home. Such  
  
is the way for the line of Tranquility. Astute's family was part of  
  
the established aristocracy. They live in a very different world   
  
from that which we have experienced...."  
  
"You know this for sure?"  
  
"Your dream, Tranqs.... If I may be so bold to interpret it.   
  
The girl, Naru. She is YOU!" Naiad prodded Tranquility. "She is   
  
the kind of person you want to be."  
  
"Me? Oh don't be ridiculous."  
  
"Ah, to be ordinary. We can't be, you know that? We can't be  
  
ordinary. We were born with something inside of us that mitigates  
  
against this." Naiad stared off into space. The same kind of   
  
dreamlike expression she had had before. It was not an expression  
  
Tranquility remembered existing on the face of the Naiad she knew  
  
within the Academy.  
  
"Can you hear that?" Naiad said, suddenly.  
  
"Hear what?" Tranquility listened, then shook her head. "I  
  
can't hear anything other than the fountain."  
  
"Precisely. The mysterious element of water, chattering away  
  
to itself." Naiad smiled and closed her eyes. "I'm surprised that  
  
you found this place so pleasing, Tranquility. You never struck me  
  
as someone who required the calming effects of the voice of water."  
  
Tranquility frowned, then listened to the fountain, bubbling  
  
away. She soon found the gentleness of the water's note, along with  
  
the rippling light around the walls and high ceiling of the chamber,  
  
making her drowsy.  
  
She fell, into vast clouds of blue.  
  
----o  
  
The moment Hotaru arrived at the front entrance of the   
  
hospital was the moment the banging on the front door stopped, soon  
  
followed by the sound of shattering glass.  
  
Kameju and two of the nursing staff stood back from the door  
  
they had been trying to hold shut as a gang of five men layed into  
  
it with baseball bats.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?" Hotaru grabbed Kameju as he  
  
made for the inner door. He turned and stared at her in panic.  
  
"They want the Healer..."  
  
"Eh?"  
  
"They want Usako the Healer. They're part of the Anti-Usagi  
  
legion. They want to kill Usako the Healer. They know she's in   
  
here."  
  
"What the f..." Hotaru was showered with glass, and felt   
  
herself being dragged away by Kameju. "Wait..." She gasped. "I   
  
can hold them off.... Get your patients somewhere safe."  
  
"Oh no you won't." Kameju gripped her arm tightly. "Did you  
  
see what one of them was carrying?"  
  
"What?" Hotaru blinked at him as he threw her into the arms  
  
of one of the nurses and jammed the large, wooden inner door shut.  
  
"A Rubicon. An anti-magical device."  
  
"A RUBICON?" Hotaru wrestled herself from the nurse's grip.  
  
"Where in hell did they... And how the hell do you know..."  
  
"No time to argue. We have to barricade this door." Kameju  
  
pointed to the door and the two nurses nodded, running into the  
  
nearest rooms and dragging out items of furniture.  
  
Hotaru stood back from the three medical staff, and ran into  
  
someone. She jumped and turned. It was only Makoto. She put a   
  
hand to her chest, breathing easier.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you to  
  
look after the others." Hotaru glowered at the taller woman, who  
  
was staring at the door. From beyond, they could hear the sound of  
  
the entry alarm. It didn't last long. With one almighty crash, the  
  
alarm was silenced.  
  
"I heard the smashing... I thought you..." Makoto stammered.  
  
"I can look after myself, thankyou very much."  
  
"Who... Who is it...?"  
  
"Apparently, anti-Usagi types who want Usako. They must have  
  
heard she would be staying here for the night."  
  
Makoto punched a fist in the palm of her other hand. "Then I  
  
say we give them a taste of our powers."  
  
"No can do."  
  
Makoto deflated a little. "Why not?"  
  
"Do you remember that little box Rubeus used on the Usagis  
  
when you arrived on Earth?"  
  
"That Rubicon thingy, yeah."  
  
"Well, they've got one."  
  
"But the one Rubeus used only worked on Usagis."  
  
"Yes, but according to Arachne-sama, and my father confirmed  
  
this, it was possible to adjust the device to block all elemental  
  
signals."  
  
Makoto blinked. "Nobody told me that."  
  
"Nobody thought you'd understand."  
  
"I refute the suggestion that I'm stupid."  
  
Hotaru sighed. "Nobody has ever thought you were stupid,   
  
Makoto. Pig-headed, yes, but stupid...."  
  
They both cringed as the gang began to beat against the inner  
  
door. Makoto shook her head. "Rubicon or not, looks like we're   
  
going to have to fight...."  
  
"Then we're going to have to take them by surprise. Hotaru  
  
smiled. Makoto frowned at her.  
  
"How?"  
  
"We attack them from where they won't be expecting us!"  
  
----o  
  
Outside, a gathered crowd came to watch the scene of wanton  
  
destruction in various states of support and distress.  
  
Overlooking them all, from the top of a three story building,  
  
was a small white shape, with long pointy ears and yellow hair in  
  
odango ponytails, dressed in a sailorsenshi fuku.  
  
"Puuuu...." Said the figure.  
  
----o  
  
"Oh, this is such a great idea." Said Makoto as she squeezed  
  
through the side window. "I'm amazed they didn't think of this."  
  
"Aww, shuddup!" Hotaru, standing in the small space between  
  
the hospital and the side fence, gripped Makoto's arms and dragged  
  
her through the window. CereCere pushed her head through the tiny  
  
gap.  
  
"Good thing you two went on a diet. A week ago neither of  
  
you would have succeeded in getting through there." They both  
  
glowered at her. "So, what do I do?"  
  
"You take on their frontal assault if and when they get   
  
through the second door."  
  
"Aww. I always miss the fun."  
  
"This isn't going to be fun." Hotaru took a deep breath and  
  
gestured to Makoto to follow her.  
  
----o  
  
The first thing Tranquility wanted to do was scream. So she  
  
did. It isn't often that one found themselves floating through the  
  
atmosphere of some unidentified world when your previous position  
  
had been as far from thus as was possible.  
  
After she stopped screaming, she soon realised she wasn't  
  
falling, but floating. She looked up into a vast blue sky, with a  
  
single, brilliant blue sun. Below her, and around her, were the  
  
whispy trails of blue and white clouds that seemed, to her eyes at  
  
least, go on and on and on into raging, boiling oceans of gas below.  
  
Then she heard another scream, from above. She looked up and  
  
saw a figure falling, albeit in a kind of controlled fall. A Sailor  
  
Teleport!  
  
She watched with fascination as the figure flew past her, not  
  
even registering her existence. She blinked a couple of times....  
  
Surely, that was Atrenar Kesseille, the Senshi of Jupiter.... She  
  
wore a similarly coloured uniform, and had very similar facial   
  
features and hair, but she was slightly younger than she remembered  
  
Kesseille being.  
  
She watched as Kesseille made for a small object which seemed  
  
to be sailing amongst the clouds. She was surprised that she hadn't  
  
noticed it before. Eventually, Kesseille disappeared from sight,   
  
and the object behind clouds.  
  
She felt clouds, swallowing her up.  
  
----o  
  
Naiad took her hand away from Tranquility's forehead, and   
  
smiled. The Queen to be shifted uncomfortably in her sleep, resting  
  
her head back against the column.  
  
Naiad, now standing before her, turned to the fountain pool   
  
and held two fingers up, inline, before her mouth and whispered a  
  
prayer. She put her hand down and nodded.  
  
"Thankyou." She said softly to the water.  
  
In dreams we find warnings of what is to come. Or what has   
  
already been. She recounted the line taught to her by the previous  
  
3rd Miko of Water.  
  
Perhaps it was time to investigate this world a little deeper?  
  
END OF PART 3  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
DDFA darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
28th Mar 1998 


	4. Part 4: Train of Thought

Title: Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi Part 4  
  
Author: Dark Day For Anime (Mark A Page)  
  
Email: darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
Fic Rating: R  
  
SIU - The Sailor Investigation Unit: A Series In Desperate Need Of  
  
Comments. ^_^;;  
  
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=770955  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI  
  
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME (Mark A Page)  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so  
  
these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. If  
  
you vaguely know anything about Sailormoon, you'll spot them a mile  
  
off. "Ahoy there, Cap'n, I sees me an original character."  
  
"Steer clear of them, helmsman. They can be nasty when the weather  
  
turns bad."  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Miste Kiele rose from her bed, crying out in mortal fear. As  
  
she stared, dazedly, around her room, trying to catch her breath,  
  
she recounted the dream that had awoken her in such fright.  
  
The burning village. Men storming the township in which she  
  
had been born. Her neighbours, slaughtered before her eyes, her  
  
mother and father, trying to run from their attackers. Her own   
  
flight for safety, far from the sheltered valley.  
  
She saw cropfields on fire, and impaled bodies lining the   
  
roads, and....  
  
She composed herself. These nightmares had gotten well out of  
  
control. She required help.... But that would only mean admitting  
  
a weakness.... And it was very unlikely that anyone would feel the  
  
desire to help the likes of Miste Kiele....  
  
She sighed and swung her legs over the side of the large,   
  
plush bed and stared down at the carpeted floor. Only the merest  
  
shaft of light pierced the darkness.... The glow of the Earth   
  
through the stained-crystal window. Soon, she would be leaving with   
  
Serenity for a province on that nearby world.... The Governess of a   
  
colony of the Moon Kingdom....  
  
She clenched her fists. It was so unfair. Serenity had tried  
  
so hard to live up to the expectations of her late mother.... But   
  
as soon as the old Queen had passed on, it became obvious that   
  
Serenity was not to be the one to replace her.  
  
Miste had had an interest in seeing Serenity to the throne.   
  
She had spent much of her teenage years with the young princess, and  
  
had become... close, to an extent. Miste did not relate well to   
  
others, so it had come as a surprise that she hit it off with   
  
Serenity so well, and vice-versa. For her to lose that one true   
  
line of support....   
  
Even if she was the senshi of Mercury, she had chosen to go   
  
with Serenity.... And who knows...? Maybe Tranquility would turn   
  
out not to be quite the Queen everyone expected...  
  
No, that was a dream. Once Serenity had accepted the veto of  
  
her ascension, she virtually abdicated all right to the throne. It   
  
was only her daughter, the inheritor of the line, who would have a  
  
chance at the throne once the reign of Tranquility was over....  
  
She stood and stared at the pale, blue of the planet. There   
  
were ways to guarentee the reinstatement of Serenity. She smiled.   
  
It had been a while since she had involved herself in such political   
  
games. Thoughts and plans began to map themselves in her mind....  
  
"Excuse me.... I'm sorry to disturb you like this...." The   
  
soft voice emerged from the darkness of her room. She spun and   
  
stared into that dark veil.  
  
"Who is there?!" She barked loudly. "How dare you disturb me  
  
in the privacy of my room!?"  
  
"I said I was sorry, but there are some things I have to talk  
  
with you about." The voice came closer with the sound of moving   
  
feet. A silhouette emerged, that of a young girl wearing a strange  
  
white, blue and red dress. Her hair was cut short and had a bluish  
  
tinge to it, not unlike her own. In fact, she looked a great deal  
  
like her.  
  
"You.... Who are you?" She asked, quietly, and with a tinge  
  
of fear. The girl smiled and bowed.  
  
"My name is Mizuno Ami. I am your next life, Miste Kiele."  
  
----o  
  
Part Four  
  
Train of Thought  
  
----o  
  
Michiru sat on the train platform looking from side to side,  
  
wondering if a train would ever arrive. Considering the station sat  
  
in the middle of two tree-lined grassy fields, near what looked like  
  
the only road in a hundred miles, she wasn't hopeful. That she   
  
couldn't precisely remember just how it was she came to be here was  
  
also worrying her.  
  
The wind blew. Warmly. At least the weather wasn't too bad.  
  
A few patchy clouds in the orange sky. She blinked for a few   
  
moments and wondered about that, but not for very long. It didn't   
  
change the fact that she was sitting at a railway station in the   
  
middle of nowhere.  
  
She stood, looking down at the simple, short white dress she   
  
was wearing. Not her style, at all. She was a more sophisticated  
  
sort, and disliked the movement towards simplicity in sartorial   
  
tastes. She had always taken great care of her appearance,   
  
especially in public, and it annoyed her that she looked, and felt,  
  
somewhat less than presentable.  
  
She sniffed contemptuously and stepped up to the edge of the   
  
platform, staring down at the rails. She wished she knew where   
  
Haruka was. She felt somewhat incomplete without her.  
  
She heard a noise, coming from the distance. At first she  
  
thought it was the rush of the wind, blowing across the vast fields  
  
of grass. But then it became louder and seemed to be rolling over  
  
the distant rise the road passed over.  
  
She saw a vehicle of some description ride the crest of the   
  
rise, dropping into the run towards the railway crossing. Michiru  
  
stood and watched it for several moments, paralysed with indecision.   
  
Slowly, she started to make her way to the road end of the station,   
  
leaping off the platform onto the ground below.  
  
She started to shout, waving her hands as she ran across the  
  
dirt, towards the road, hoping the driver of the vehicle would see  
  
her. And then she tripped, over a small depression in the ground,  
  
and landed face forward.  
  
She picked herself up, dazedly, just in time to hear the   
  
vehicle rolling over the crossing. She looked up and watched as the  
  
car continued on its way.... Its driver apparently oblivious to her  
  
presence. She punched the ground in frustration at her momentary  
  
indecision.  
  
If Haruka had been here, she would have decided to hail down  
  
the vehicle as soon as she had seen it. If Haruka had been here,   
  
she would, most likely, have succeeded. But no.... Haruka wasn't  
  
here, and she tripped over like some pathetic, weak young thing!  
  
She got to her feet and brushed the dry dirt from her dress.  
  
Now she looked even less presentable. Life really sucked,   
  
sometimes.  
  
----o  
  
Naiad stared into the pool of water, then back up at the   
  
sleeping Tranquility. It was hard to ascertain exactly what it was  
  
that defined her powers as being different from those of Scylla and  
  
Arachne. Or, for that matter, Miste Kiele. The less she thought  
  
about that, the better.  
  
However, there was one aspect to the duty of the water miko of  
  
the third refrain that set her apart from all the others. As the   
  
miko that represented the end of the wheel of life, she had the   
  
capacity to see into death.  
  
Within the water lay the doorways to the worlds of the   
  
dead.... The many various and exotic locations where conciousness   
  
is channeled after the cessation of physical existence. Naiad   
  
wanted to see these, because she had the strangest feeling that the  
  
dreams she had experienced with Tranquility only moments before were  
  
portents of some great event that was to occur, centered on the   
  
"other side".  
  
She shouldn't have been so surprised to have found all of   
  
those doorways open. Not just ajar, as they can be under natural  
  
circumstances, but wide open. The result of interference by some  
  
being on any side of the great barriers, and left that way for   
  
future visitors to ponder and traverse.  
  
Visitors like her. Only she wasn't going to use the doorways  
  
for that purpose, because it was exceedingly bad news that they were  
  
in the state they were.  
  
Someone was either in this world, or one of the other worlds,  
  
wreaking havoc on the holistic train of events, in all the past,   
  
present and the future. Naiad sighed to herself, shaking her head.  
  
She'd been through this kind of thing before, when she had first   
  
started her time in miko office. That was different, though, as it  
  
had only been a few of the doorways.  
  
She clasped her hands together, and crackles of energy emerged  
  
from them. Slowly, she brought them apart, the energy following   
  
their motion, sparking from one to the next like plasma.  
  
Then the energy started to take shape, and a staff appeared,  
  
bearing a trident on one end to which three rings linked. She spun  
  
the staff and hit the base on the ground, making the rings at the   
  
top tinkle.  
  
Circular waves emerged from her side of the fountain pool,   
  
washing light towards the far end. A maelstrom appeared within the   
  
waves, eventually dominating that end of the pool. She closed her   
  
eyes and chanted a short spell, then stepped off the side onto the   
  
water, where she stood without sinking.  
  
She opened her eyes and turned back to Tranquility, giving the  
  
Queen to be one last look, then sank into the centre of the   
  
maelstrom, disappearing from sight....  
  
----o  
  
Usagi wandered down the corridor, feeling somewhat annoyed   
  
with the directions the security guard had given her. The   
  
passageway seemed to go on forever, like the one on the previous  
  
level. However, this one was rather more individual in its   
  
decorations, and had a few more added features, such as vending   
  
machines.  
  
Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten   
  
anything in.... However long it was she hadn't eaten anything. She  
  
cursed her lack of memory. She had to force herself to walk past   
  
the food vending machines through lack of a resource known as money.  
  
She hadn't thought of this problem before now. It went hand in hand  
  
with the fact that there hadn't been any clothes within the hotel   
  
room, that she could see, before she had been thrown out by the   
  
room.  
  
She sighed at the cruelty of life.  
  
Then she could hear noise. The sound of a television. It   
  
made for a change, since there had not been any noise coming from   
  
the hotel rooms she had passed. She quickened her pace and   
  
eventually spotted a large, open doorway on the left side of the  
  
corridor. So this was the "activities room" the security guard had  
  
told her about.  
  
She also reminded herself that he had told her not to let   
  
anyone in the activity room convince her to join their games. Her  
  
pace slowed.  
  
She arrived at the doorway and peered in, tentatively. She   
  
could see a young man, sitting in one of the chairs that were lined  
  
up on one side of the room. He was dressed in a sweater and jeans,  
  
and had short brown hair. He also looked rather despondant, and was  
  
staring down at the floor, blankly.  
  
She moved forward, so she could get a better view of the room.  
  
It was quite a large room, more like a hall, and contained pool and  
  
ping-pong tables, game machines and one armed bandits, pachinko   
  
machines and even a swimming pool with spa at one end. The only   
  
thing that was missing were people using the facilities. So much   
  
for the guard's warning. She sniffed and looked across to the far   
  
end of the room, and could spot a glass doorway, leading to another  
  
set of stairs.  
  
She stepped into the room, and was immediately surrounded by a  
  
dozen people from out of nowhere.  
  
"Hello." Said one, standing right in front of her, smiling in  
  
her face. "Would you like to join us in a game of ping pong? I'm  
  
not very good, and need the practice."  
  
"Ano...." Usagi blinked in surprise.  
  
"Why would she want to play ping pong with the likes of you?"   
  
Said a taller man, with dark hair, off to her left. "I'm sure she'd  
  
much prefer to play pool with me. I'm a master of the game, and she  
  
looks like she could be a challenge."  
  
"Looks more like she's decked out to go swimming." Said a   
  
woman, standing behind her.  
  
"In her underwear? Don't make me laugh." A burly man with a  
  
scar on his face pushed the ping-pong man aside. "You want to play  
  
the pachinko machines, don't you my little lovely?"  
  
"Ano.... Can I get through? I want to get to the...." But   
  
the burly pachinko man wasn't listening. He grabbed her by the   
  
wrist and started dragging her through the group. Then she was   
  
grabbed by her other wrist. Both she and the pachinko man turned   
  
and looked back as the pool man started dragging her back the other  
  
way.  
  
"Where are you going with my challenge girl?" The pool man   
  
growled, threateningly.  
  
"She belongs to me!" The pachinko man sneered.  
  
Before she knew what was happening, the group hand grabbed her  
  
two top limbs and was using her as a tug-of-war rope. She clenched  
  
her teeth in pain. "Let me GO!"  
  
"She's mine!"  
  
"No! She belongs to ME!"  
  
Usagi thought her arms were going to be pulled out of their   
  
sockets, when a voice brought the group's efforts to a stop.   
  
"ENOUGH!"  
  
She rubbed her sore shoulders as they all turned to a tall man   
  
in a dark suit and shades, standing in the doorway to the corridor,  
  
stared at them.  
  
Usagi watched him as he purposefully strode into the room,   
  
causing the group to part like the waters of the Red Sea as he   
  
approached her.  
  
He stood in front of her, silently, making her cringe.   
  
"Nani?" She said, annoyedly.  
  
"I am the monitor of the Activities Room. Have you chosen to  
  
enter my domain with the intention of using the facilities?"  
  
"No, actually. I only wanted to get to the stairway on the   
  
other side."  
  
"You WHAT!?!" He exploded in splenetic rage, making Usagi   
  
flinch, and the group exclaim in surprise.  
  
"You don't want to...." The pachinko man began to back away.  
  
"This is outrageous...." The ping pong man shook his head.  
  
"Never have I met someone who has refused to... Not in all my  
  
time, here." The swimming pool woman crossed her arms.  
  
And all the while, the "Monitor" clenched his fists, bearing  
  
down on Usagi. "Well, if that is the case, we'll have to show her  
  
what happens to people who enter MY domain without the intention of  
  
joining in the fun...."  
  
Usagi had a very bad feeling about this.  
  
----o  
  
Michiru sighed, terminally bored. She sat on the seat, on the   
  
rail platform, picking at the heel of one of her slip-on shoes, glad   
  
nobody could see her partaking in such an ungracious act of sheer   
  
tedium.  
  
She sighed, lowering her foot to the ground and leaning her  
  
chin in her hands. Things hadn't changed much for what had to have  
  
been... oh... close to an hour now. Of course, boredom did have a  
  
tendency to warp one's perception of the passing of time. For all  
  
she knew, it could have been ten minutes. Certainly, the sun hadn't  
  
moved all that much in the sky. That orange sky.  
  
She boggled over the colour. Alright, she thought, I know I'm  
  
not in Japan, but I don't think the colour of the sky changes   
  
depending on your terrestial location.... So I'm obviously not on   
  
the Earth....  
  
She looked around at the trees and the grass fields.   
  
Everything here LOOKED like Earth. Except for the sky, and the fact  
  
that the sun was a pale red. But apart from that, the way the light  
  
hit the ground, the green on the trees, the brown of the soil....  
  
Everything was as it should be, and yet....  
  
And yet the horizon was farther than it should be. Michiru  
  
could see an enormous number of hills and valleys on that horizon.  
  
That was what had contributed to her feeling of being in the middle  
  
of nowhere. She had a greater view of the size of the nowhere in  
  
which she had found herself.  
  
And it wasn't like any of those hills were big. Indeed, small  
  
rises in the land would have been a better description. Going on   
  
into a blurry, misty distance that was so far away, it made her feel  
  
dizzy. She almost got the feeling she was sitting in a kind of   
  
bowl-like depression. She knew this wasn't possible, but the   
  
distance was playing tricks with her eyes....  
  
She turned away, staring down at the cement of the platform.  
  
Giving herself something her mind could, logically, deal with gave   
  
her the opportunity to regain her composure. She stood and looked  
  
at the platform, itself.  
  
It reminded her of some of the hastily-constructed country  
  
platforms she had seen in her travels across Japan. Prefabricated  
  
steel and concrete. A backing wall with a simple roof shelter. At  
  
one end was a small toilet, at the other a ticket box. There was  
  
nobody in the ticket box. She had checked that earlier. And she  
  
wasn't surprised.... It would have been the most soul-destroying  
  
and lifeless job, to be a ticket seller at a railway station the  
  
likes of this one.  
  
The breeze blew colder. Considering how warm it had been only   
  
moments ago, it surprised her. She turned and looked both ways,   
  
along the line. It went straight for... For as far as the horizon.   
  
And she saw nothing approaching.  
  
She sighed. The best she could do was watch, and wait.  
  
And hope.  
  
----o  
  
Naiad glided down the tunnel of imagination, through one of   
  
the many doorways, hoping that it would lead her to the culprit....  
  
The individual who had opened the door in the first place.  
  
The world started to form around her, and she found herself  
  
standing in the middle of a large, empty, bitumenised field.  
  
She pulled her miko robes tightly around her as she felt a   
  
cool breeze blow across the field, trying to get her bearings. She  
  
could see a collection of buildings at one end of the field, and in   
  
the distance what appeared to be a city of some kind, but not the   
  
like she had ever seen in her experience.  
  
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now, Sailorsenshi, I have defeated   
  
thee. Queen Beryl shall reward me for bringing her your heads!"   
  
Naiad turned to the voice to see a light-haired man, in a strange  
  
kind of uniform, standing over the bloodied and partially flattened  
  
bodies of three young girls, who all appeared to be....  
  
Naiad gasped. It was Serenity and two of her senshi.... Mars  
  
and Mercury. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The man   
  
reached down to Serenity and grabbed her by the hair, lifting up her  
  
head and producing a sword from out of nowhere, clearly intending to  
  
cut it off.  
  
And then a large double-blade on a polearm landed in his   
  
skull. He coughed and choked for a few moments, surprised by this   
  
turn of events, then fell to the ground, dead.  
  
"Sorry about that, Jadeite." Said the woman who held the   
  
polearm as she ripped it from his skull, swinging it over her   
  
shoulder. She was dressed in a black and violet minidress and black  
  
ripple-soled shoes, and had pale skin and medium-length black hair.  
  
She turned to her companion, a taller woman who was dressed in   
  
shorts and a short sleeved white shirt, wearing hiking boots, with  
  
wavy brown hair and a slightly tanned expression. "It just overcame  
  
me. These things happen." The shorter girl said.  
  
"Doesn't make much of a difference. We were too late to stop  
  
her changing things." The taller girl huffed angrily. "We'll never  
  
stop her at this rate."  
  
Naiad stepped forward, recognising the two women as the senshi  
  
of Jupiter and Saturn. What the Saturn senshi was doing, running   
  
around, free of her bonds, she would have liked to know.   
  
Eventually, the pair registered her presence.  
  
"Aww shit, not you again." The Jupiter senshi shook her head.  
  
"I thought we'd gotten rid of you."  
  
"Pardon me? But what is it that you speak of?" Naiad blinked  
  
in surprise at their apparent recognition. The Saturn senshi shook  
  
her head and looked at Jupiter.  
  
"It would appear that we have met her at an earlier stage. I  
  
guess this means we might have to explain ourselves."  
  
"I hate having to explain myself, especially to someone like   
  
her. She's gonna ask us if we're to blame for the doorways being   
  
open, I can see it now...." Jupiter shrugged.  
  
"Now now, let's not be cynical...." Saturn put a hand on   
  
Jupiter's shoulder.  
  
Naiad had the strangest feeling she didn't want to know the  
  
explanation for this.  
  
----o  
  
Michiru had almost dozed off, lying on her side against the  
  
bench. The air was getting cooler, and the light darker. The   
  
occasional glance towards the western... what she thought was the  
  
western... horizon, showed the approach of the mist. A soft, light  
  
mist, blowing through the clouds. Yet it had an icy tinge to it,  
  
and Michiru didn't feel all that enthused about still being here  
  
when it blew through.  
  
The noise was soft, and, like with the car, she had mistaken  
  
it for the wind. But this, too, became increasingly loud, and she  
  
sat up, looking at the road. Only it wasn't coming from the road.  
  
She stood and stepped up to the edge of the platform, looking  
  
down the line to her right. A train was approaching! Now she could  
  
get some answers as to where it was she'd found herself!  
  
And then she panicked. What if it didn't stop? What if she  
  
had to pay to get on if it did? Did the people here speak any of   
  
the languages she knew? There was only one way to find out.  
  
Despite the tacky blandness of the station itself, the train  
  
that pulled up was ultra-modern. It had five cars, including the  
  
engine, two of which had ordinary seating, and the other two for  
  
sleeping cabins. As far as Michiru could see, there wasn't anyone  
  
in the economy seats. The windows to the sleeper cars were   
  
darkened.  
  
The train came to a stop, and the doors to each car slid open.  
  
Nobody stepped out from any of them. Michiru stepped up to the   
  
closest, which lead to the second economy car, and peered in. As   
  
she suspected, the car was completely empty.  
  
Tentatively, she stepped in. The seating within the car was  
  
plush, but then it tended to be on the long-distance trains, and   
  
from what she could see, this train would travel a VERY long   
  
distance.  
  
There was no conductor to challenge her entry onto the train,  
  
nor could she remember seeing the face of the driver throught the  
  
engine window. This distinct lack of people began to make her feel  
  
somewhat uncomfortable with the situation. For a moment, she   
  
thought about getting off the train....  
  
Too late. The doors slid shut behind her, and with a blast  
  
from its horn, the train started on its way, crossing the road with  
  
the ringing of the warning bells, and on.  
  
Michiru held the back of the nearest seat, not quite knowing  
  
what to do next. She turned to the rear door of the car. The   
  
window set into the door was tinted, and allowed only a view of the  
  
door to the next car. The same with the door to the first carriage,  
  
when she walked up to inspect it. With a shake of her head, she   
  
opened the door.  
  
The gap between the cars was covered, so it wasn't that hard  
  
to get from one to the next. She moved forward and opened the next  
  
door. As with the car she had entered, this one was also empty.   
  
She felt a cold sensation running through her. It felt like she was  
  
riding on a ghost train....  
  
Putting that thought aside, she continued forward to the next  
  
door along. At first, she thought that, as this lead to the engine,  
  
the door might be locked. But it wasn't when she tried it, and   
  
stepped into the covered connection.  
  
She swallowed as she reached for the door to the engine. If  
  
she barged in, she would, most likely, get in trouble with the   
  
driver. If there WAS a driver, of course. She tried the handle  
  
and the door swung open to reveal.... An empty engine car, lined  
  
with banks of computers. The entire train was being run   
  
automatically.  
  
"What are you doing in the engine?" She felt a hand slap down  
  
on her shoulder, let out a small cry and fainted, leaving the   
  
conductor wondering what he'd done wrong....  
  
END OF PART 4  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
DDFA darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
20TH Apr 1998 


	5. Part 5: Stream of Conciousness

Title: Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi Part 5  
  
Author: Dark Day For Anime (Mark A Page)  
  
Email: darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
Fic Rating: R  
  
SIU - The Sailor Investigation Unit: A Series In Desperate Need Of  
  
Comments. ^_^;;  
  
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=770955  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI  
  
by DARK DAY FOR ANIME  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so  
  
these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. If  
  
you vaguely know anything about Sailormoon, you'll spot them a mile  
  
off. "Ahoy there, Cap'n, I sees me an original character."  
  
"Steer clear of them, helmsman. They can be nasty when the weather  
  
turns bad."  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
S T A R T  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
From the Empirical Encyclopedia of Populated Worlds....  
  
WYCCFAER (pr. Wish-Fair)  
  
From the ancient Homeworlder tongue, meaning "World of the  
  
Spirits".... The planet Wyccfaer was initially catalogued by   
  
Homeworlder explorers in the early days of the empire (101-107ccd),   
  
at the edge of a fringe star system (BT3-1018), encircling a small   
  
dwarf star (RTV-07 "Lachesis"). The planet has an equatorial   
  
diameter of 45,227 Colems, making it roughly three times the size of   
  
the average habitable terrestial world, yet with a gravitational   
  
pull only slightly higher than that of the Homeworld (1.03g).  
  
The planet was found to be already populated by an assortment  
  
of alien races, including Homeworlders, Mausians, Petaraines and   
  
even Mherrians. No explanation has ever been given for this. Since  
  
there are no surviving early records of interplanetary colonisation,  
  
from any of the planets with races discovered on Wyccfaer, it is   
  
likely that those found on the planet were the product of wandering  
  
colonials or refugee armadas.  
  
The culture of the "native" Wyccfaerie is hard to define, as   
  
there is no single definable culture to be found. Society on the   
  
planet works almost by accident, as attempts by the local population  
  
to set up some form of government has always met with apathy. The  
  
Council of Representatives, set up by the Homeworld within   
  
Wyccfaer's unofficial capital Shy (pr. Sa-hee) has only succeeded in  
  
giving structure to the intrinsically unkempt nature of the   
  
population....  
  
----o  
  
Usagi stared at herself in the school bathroom mirror after  
  
applying some makeup.  
  
"Not bad if I do say so, myself." After brushing down her   
  
school uniform, she winked at her reflection and smiled, putting her   
  
hands on her hips. She was getting better, of recent, in applying   
  
makeup, thanks to Minako's efforts. Although the girl had been   
  
rather busy of late, always fobbing Usagi off for one reason or   
  
another, Usagi had been practicing on her own.  
  
"Just wait 'til Mamo-chan sees me." She put her hands up to  
  
her mouth and giggled, then quickly packed the makeup away in her   
  
schoolbag before a teacher walked in, making a check on the toilets.  
  
She had to hurry. She had told Ami, Makoto and Naru that she  
  
would only be a couple of minutes. They'd been acting strange, all  
  
day, and seemed pleased to let her go. She was sure both Makoto and  
  
Naru had been sweating.... Profusely, in fact. And it wasn't even  
  
warm, or anything. Usagi wondered if they were sick.  
  
Before she could open the bathroom door, there was a flash   
  
behind her, from one of the cubicles. She turned and frowned. The  
  
light glimmered a couple of times, then dissipated. Curious, she   
  
made her way to the cubicle.  
  
It was empty. She scratched her head for a moment. Maybe it  
  
was Hanako-san, or something like that.... The infamous ghost of   
  
the school toilet. She shivered, not liking to think about such   
  
things. Well, whatever the case, there was nothing there now. She  
  
turned to continue on her way.  
  
She felt a hand jam a moist cloth across her nose and mouth.   
  
She tried to protest, but instantly felt faint, the liquid on the   
  
cloth carrying a strange, sharp aroma.... It was the last thing she  
  
sensed before she fell to the floor, her face a white as a sheet.  
  
From the cubicle stepped Usagi, dressed in a singlet and   
  
shorts, her white hair hanging loose. She flung the cloth into the  
  
toilet bowl behind her and stepped over to the washbasins, cleaning  
  
the chemical from her hands.  
  
She looked up into the mirror with tired eyes, then glanced at  
  
her double's reflection.  
  
"I'm sorry. Even if I had let you go, you would not have seen   
  
the day out, let alone our dearest Mamo-chan...." Tears came to her  
  
eyes, and she collapsed over the basin, half-sobbing, half-laughing.  
  
They both vanished into nothingness.  
  
----o  
  
Part Five  
  
Stream of Conciousness  
  
----o  
  
"So, would you be so kind as to explain just what events took  
  
place here?" Naiad gestured expansively, staring at the two young   
  
women who had introduced themselves as a Kino Makoto and Tomoe   
  
Hotaru. Naiad knew them both as different people, however, and   
  
found their attitudinal differences a bit hard to swallow.  
  
"Yes, I might be so kind as to explain." Makoto mocked   
  
Naiad's overformal Milleniumite tone. Hotaru nudged her.  
  
"Stop that."  
  
"Stop what?" Makoto glanced at her.  
  
"Taking the piss out of Umi.... I mean Naiad."  
  
"I'm not taking the piss out of her."  
  
"Yeah right, and what was with the accent?"  
  
"Well I just couldn't help myself, okay? Jeez, you're so   
  
sensitive in your old age."  
  
"Who are you calling old?"  
  
"Technically speaking, you're a couple of years older than   
  
me." Makoto prodded Hotaru's chest.  
  
"Only because of a freak event that disrupted the doorways  
  
of the dead. It wasn't my fault."  
  
Naiad gritted her teeth. "Ano.... Excuse me. Would you like  
  
to partake in the answering of my inquiry?" She smiled through   
  
those teeth.  
  
"Well, yeah, sure.... If you can follow what we're saying. I  
  
mean, I know you're a psycho with an inferiority complex, completely  
  
unaware of your previous existence as a minor goddess, but hey, I'm  
  
sure you'll be able to understand." Hotaru whapped Makoto over the  
  
head for that.  
  
"I'm sorry, Naiad-sama. I'm afraid she hasn't taken her   
  
medication, this morning. She's like this when she leaves it behind  
  
in Crystal Towers." Hotaru did her best to smile, sweetly.  
  
"Crystal Towers?" Naiad raised an eyebrow. "What is this   
  
Crystal Towers that you speak of?"  
  
"Our home, on Earth. You know, that big blue thing that hangs   
  
over the Moon like a foot over an ant. Squishy squishy...." Makoto  
  
chuckled as Hotaru put a hand to her face, sighing with   
  
embarrassment. Naiad rubbed her chin, thoughtfully.  
  
"Perhaps you might like to explain to me the current status of   
  
the Moon Kingdom?"  
  
"We can't do that.... You might try to stop it happening.."  
  
Hotaru slapped a hand over her mouth. Makoto rolled her eyes.  
  
"Yeah, great one, Einstein. Give everything away." Hotaru  
  
shot her a look.  
  
"YOU can complain."  
  
"S... Stop what happening?" Naiad asked, softly. She was  
  
ignored by the pair.  
  
"Yes, I'm complaining. You've been pretty good at it up to  
  
now." Makoto put her hands behind her head and looked away,   
  
whistling. Hotaru took a breath and tapped Makoto over the head  
  
with the flat of the Glaive.  
  
"You're cruisin' for a bruisin', you know that?"  
  
"At least I'm capable of giving one out. Better than someone  
  
who needs a stick to whack people about."  
  
"Stop what happening?" Naiad asked, louder, and was still  
  
ignored.  
  
"What did you say?" Hotaru growled. Makoto turned back to   
  
her, smiling.  
  
"Hmm? Did I say something? Hmm? Eh?"  
  
"Stop what happening?!?!?" Naiad shouted, at the top of her  
  
voice. Makoto and Hotaru stared at her, blinking, as she panted   
  
with exasperation.  
  
"Look, Naiad... Umi... Millenia... Whatever you want to   
  
call yourself...." Makoto started.  
  
"You will address me.... as the Lady.... Naiad Keth Drutein."   
  
Naiad said, between pants. Makoto shrugged.  
  
"Yeah, whatever. You can't be told about the current state of  
  
the Moon Kingdom cos that might mean you'll try to change certain   
  
events. And you have the power within you to do so. On top of   
  
that, we're already trying to stop an idiot from changing the   
  
timelines. Look... Look at this." Makoto gestured to the dead   
  
bodies of the young Sailormoon, Sailormercury and Sailormars, as   
  
well as that of Jadeite.  
  
"Yes? And what of it?" Naiad stood tall and stared at her,  
  
archly, attempting her best regal pose.  
  
"The stupid idiot caused these three to get run over by an   
  
aircraft. They're not supposed to get run over by an aircraft.   
  
They were supposed to be able to defeat this moron, here...." She  
  
pointed to Jadeite.   
  
"What is an 'aircraft'?" Naiad queried. Makoto pointed past  
  
her.  
  
"That is."  
  
Naiad turned and almost jumped. Sitting nearby was a large  
  
metal object with wings. "Ah, I see. An aerial conveyance."  
  
Makoto snorted. "Yeah, that  
  
Hotaru continued. "They were to be aided by a man, named   
  
Chiba Mamoru, who goes by the pseudonym Tuxedo Kamen. You know him  
  
better as Prince Endymion."  
  
"Endymion...." Naiad took a breath. "And is he dead, too?"  
  
"Yeah, at the bottom of that stretch of water over there,   
  
feeding the fishies." Makoto pointed. Naiad gave it a cursory   
  
glance.  
  
"I take it that wasn't supposed to happen, either?" Naiad  
  
had come to the conclusion that this pair would have been certified   
  
had they existed within the Moon Kingdom. Actually, they DID exist   
  
in the Moon Kingdom, but that was beside the point.... She wondered   
  
what possible form of existence could have lead to them turning out   
  
the way they were now....  
  
"Neither was my killing of Jadeite." Hotaru turned up her  
  
nose. "But then, so much was screwed up, already, it wouldn't have  
  
mattered much had he lived. And besides, it was cathartic."  
  
Naiad closed her eyes. Yes, indeed. This pair would have   
  
been nicely certified, straight jacket and all.  
  
"Well, who is this individual who dares to change the lines of  
  
time? Is this the same individual who has forced and left open the  
  
doors to the worlds of the dead?"  
  
Hotaru shrugged. "I'm not sure if she did that.... But,   
  
considering her powers, it was possible. Although I dare suspect   
  
that there was some.... external involvement."  
  
"What? You mean you think there is more than one person doing  
  
this?" Makoto looked at Hotaru in surprise.  
  
"Yes, well, I've had my suspicions ever since we left   
  
Wyccfaer. I don't think she could have opened ALL the doors ALL at   
  
once. I mean, those nearest to Wyccfaer, yes, but all of them?"  
  
"Wyccfaer...." Naiad rolled the name across her tongue. It   
  
sounded, curiously, like wish-fair. Naiad had heard the name   
  
before, and tried her best to remember just what it was.  
  
"Well, she could have. I mean, she isn't Galaxia, but hey,   
  
who would want to be, eh?" Hotaru chuckled.  
  
Makoto shrugged. "Maybe it's Galaxia who opened the doors. I  
  
wouldn't put it beyond her."  
  
"I don't think she would get involved in a caper like this.   
  
Do you?" Hotaru frowned.  
  
"What do you mean? This is precisely the kind of thing she   
  
likes to do in her spare time. And, let's face it, she's had a lot  
  
of spare time in her life. You can't live for next to forever and  
  
not have a lot of spare time."  
  
"Galaxia...." Naiad whispered. She paused in her musings and  
  
looked up at them. "What about Galaxia?"  
  
Hotaru looked from Naiad to Makoto. "Uh-oh.... We mentioned  
  
the G word."  
  
"Bugger. Forgot about her Galaxia obsession." Makoto slapped  
  
her forehead. "Now she's going to drag us through a million fantasy  
  
realms of the mind...."  
  
"Would you two stop this mindless babble and explain to me,   
  
clearly, how it is that you came to be here?" Naiad's face went   
  
red. Makoto shrugged.  
  
"Oh, very well. You see, we were in this town, guarding the  
  
Princess whilst she was visiting a community hospital...."  
  
----o  
  
"Well, that was effective...." Said Makoto, as she crawled  
  
away from the anti-Usagi extremists after receiving the biggest   
  
walloping of her career as a senshi. Of course, she'd been killed  
  
several times, but they hardly classified as a walloping. More like   
  
a smiting. She could taste blood.... There certainly was plenty of   
  
it running from her nose and mouth. That'll teach her, in the   
  
future, not to charge in like a rampant idiot, to another bunch of   
  
macho thugs.  
  
Hotaru had to run in and help her. The girl was going to hold   
  
that over for months, she could see it now. if she lived, of   
  
course. She sighed, wincing painfully and another nerve went twang   
  
like a guitar string.  
  
She was pulled aside by a couple of people who had been   
  
watching the events in the street outside the hospital.  
  
"Sailorjupiter, are you alright?" Said one, a young woman   
  
dressed in a shorter skirt than Makoto had ever worn, even under   
  
full henshin.  
  
"Do I look like I'm alright?"  
  
"I was only asking." The young woman looked hurt.  
  
"Sorry...." Makoto softened her expression, hard to do when  
  
your face feels like a burst dam.  
  
"That's.... okay." The girl helped Makoto to her feet.   
  
Makoto glanced back and winced as Hotaru skewered another of the   
  
thugs on her glaive. Good thing she managed to bring the weapon out  
  
of the little dimensional pocket she kept it before the head thug  
  
used the Rubicon on them.  
  
"Quick, get behind the crowd.... They won't see you then."   
  
The young woman started to drag Makoto through the people. Makoto   
  
tried to resist, but found she was now no longer strong enough to   
  
resist.  
  
"I can't leave Hotaru behind."  
  
"Yes you can, cos she's about to be saved by someone else."  
  
Makoto looked at the young woman, and noticed for the first   
  
time that her face bore a remarkable resemblance to....  
  
"You.... You're an Usagi clone."  
  
"Nice for you to notice." The young woman smiled.  
  
"I didn't recognise it at first. You've got dark-green hair.   
  
And.... And...." Makoto stared at the two, large feline ears that  
  
wiggled on top of the girl's head. "You're part cat...." Makoto  
  
boggled.  
  
The girl didn't say anything, just pointed to the top of the   
  
building opposite the hospital. Makoto looked up and spotted a   
  
figure. A small, round figure, with long bunny ears and....   
  
odangos....  
  
"LOOK! UP THERE!" Someone shouted.  
  
"It's the KAWAII SENSHI SAILOR PUPUPU!" Shouted another. In   
  
an instant, a spotlight hit the small figure, and Makoto facefauted.  
  
On top of the building sat a small, white bunny-thing, with   
  
little smiling eyes and mouth. The bunny had a small tuft of yellow  
  
hair on top of its head, from which the odangos and ponytails fell.   
  
And around its middle, it wore a small sailorsenshi fuku.  
  
"PUUUUUUUU!" It said, dramatically. Both Hotaru and the   
  
remaining three thugs stared at it in disbelief. The head thug   
  
turned to his two partners.  
  
"It's just another Usagi. It's powers will be removed with   
  
this." He held up the rubicon, a small box-like object that emitted  
  
a pulse every three seconds. At this close range, each pulse felt  
  
painful to Hotaru, like it was tearing through her soul.  
  
The head thug laughed, hands on hips. It was the last thing  
  
he did before Sailor PuPuPu leapt from the top of the building.  
  
"PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU................." The small  
  
bunny shouted as it plowed into the head thug, knocking him into the  
  
side of the hospital. He remained there, buried in the wall, as   
  
Sailor PuPuPu turned to his two partners. "PUUU!"  
  
Hotaru watched all of this with disbelief. Then she noticed  
  
something skittering across the ground, having fallen from the head  
  
thug's hand.  
  
She lifted up her glaive and smashed the rubicon into a   
  
thousand fragments. Instantly, she felt all of her power return to   
  
her.  
  
In the crowd, Makoto's injuries started to heal like they'd  
  
never been caused. The cat-girl watched with surprise as the blood  
  
flow slowed and ceased. She smiled.  
  
"See, I told you you'd be saved." The girl continued dabbing   
  
the blood from Makoto's face.  
  
"Who the hell was that? What the hell is it?"  
  
"The Kawaii Senshi Sailor PuPuPu, of course." The cat girl   
  
smiled sweetly. Makoto frowned at her.  
  
"How did you know it was going to be there, anyway?"  
  
"There are benefits to being part-cat. By the way, the name's  
  
Sasahara Natsagi. I'm a local police officer." She pointed to the   
  
official patch on the shoulder of her jacket, smiling.  
  
"Uh-huh...." Makoto's head started to spin.  
  
----o  
  
Michiru had all kinds of strange dreams. In one, she was   
  
riding on a giant orange, in a flowing pink dress, towards a framed  
  
portrait of Winston Churchill.  
  
She woke up when she hit it.  
  
"Yarg!" She sat up on the small sleeper-cabin bunk. She   
  
stared around the room, blearily, trying to remember just where it   
  
was she was, so to speak.  
  
The cabin door was shut, and she could feel herself being   
  
moved about by the motion of the train. It was then that she   
  
remembered having boarded the train at that remote station....   
  
Wherever both she and the station had found themselves.  
  
The train, itself, bore all the signs of being abandoned. A  
  
ghost train. She had tried to investigate the engine compartment,  
  
and found it.... empty. Devoid of people. The train was being run  
  
by a computer. A completely automated railway system.  
  
It was then that someone approached her from behind. She   
  
remembered someone saying something to her, and placing a hand on  
  
her shoulder. And then she passed out.  
  
She punched her fists down on the bunk. Ever since arriving  
  
in this.... world, she had lost all sense of decorum. What was she,  
  
a Sailorsenshi, fainting for? What did she have to feel afraid of?  
  
She very well knew the answer to that question. Haruka wasn't  
  
here. Without Haruka here, she was emotionally naked. When both   
  
she and Haruka had been together, they had been each others' set of   
  
eyes, always keeping a look out for one another when an unfamiliar  
  
situation popped up.  
  
She couldn't have found herself in any more unfamiliar a   
  
situation than to be stuck on a train on another world. Why did   
  
they even bother with trains on other worlds? Hadn't they found a  
  
better system of transport?  
  
She swung her legs over the side of the bunk and sat for a few  
  
moments, regaining her sense of place. Then there was a knock on   
  
the door. She shot a look at the door and bit her lip. Should she  
  
answer? Silly.... Of course she should answer. What did she have   
  
to be afraid of, for Kami's sake?  
  
"Hai...." She said, with undeliberate softness. The door   
  
opened briskly, and a young man in a black uniform, with silver   
  
buttons and braids, stepped in.  
  
"Ah, so you're awake, ma'am. Very good. Very good indeed."  
  
"Ano...." She blinked. "If I wasn't awake, I wouldn't have  
  
answered, would I?"  
  
The young man blinked at her, then chuckled. "Ah yes, quite  
  
amusing, I'm sure." He stepped up to her and put a hand to her   
  
forehead. Michiru stared at him.  
  
"What are you..." She started. He silenced her with a hush.  
  
"Yes, it appears the temperature has gone down." He took his  
  
hand away, smiling. "Travelling in a light dress like that is just  
  
asking to catch your death of a cold on Wyccfaer, ma'am."  
  
"Wishfair?" Michiru frowned. "Is that where I am?" She   
  
didn't know what, or where, this Wishfair was, but it was a good   
  
start.  
  
"Hmm?" The young man looked puzzled. "Of course you're on  
  
Wyccfaer. You don't get here by accident."  
  
"I'm sorry...." Michiru smiled. "It must be the aftereffects  
  
of fainting like that. I'm a little disoriented at the moment."  
  
He smiled and nodded. "Understandable. By the way, what were  
  
you doing up in the engine?"  
  
Michiru thought quickly for a reply. "Ano.... The train   
  
looked empty, and I was trying to find someone to talk to. I   
  
thought there might be someone in the engine...."  
  
"Not any more, dear. They automated the engines on this line  
  
about five years back. But then, with the length of the run between  
  
Bandaferos and Shy, they needed to. Takes close to three weeks to   
  
get from one city to the next." He chuckled. "Anyway, you must   
  
have got on at Lotus Crossing."  
  
"Er.... I think so." She hadn't seen a sign to name the   
  
station, but Lotus Crossing sounded as good as any she could come up  
  
with.  
  
"Hmm.... What were you doing out there? Not many people get  
  
on the train at Lotus Crossing."  
  
"Ano.... I was dropped off there. You know, the highway...."  
  
"Ah, yes. Well, not a lot of traffic there. Except the   
  
trucks and such. Lotus Crossing tends to be not much more than   
  
farmland."  
  
"Looked like it, too."  
  
The young man sniffed. "Well, as you have probably guessed,   
  
I'm the train's conductor. At least until we reach Tobur. And as  
  
you're one of three passengers at this point, I hope you have a long  
  
repertoir of stories to tell me, cos it's a long way to the next   
  
station, and there's jack all to see out the window. Except low   
  
lying hills and grassy fields."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"This is Wyccfaer. All terrestial worlds this size tend to be  
  
fairly flat and bland. Not that a lot of people get to walk on   
  
them. Wyccfaer is a freak of a planet. Over forty-thousand   
  
clicks around the equator, with a density level of 2.24. In short,   
  
it's big without much substance. A fun place to be if you're   
  
looking for perpetual boredom." He shrugged. "My family moved here   
  
seventeen years ago when there was a big population drive. At least   
  
Shy isn't too bad a place to live. I'm from Shy, by the way."  
  
Michiru nodded, completely nonplussed. "Um, I'm not big on  
  
astronavigation, but where is Wyccfaer, exactly?"  
  
"Hmm, somewhere in the Beleres region, I think. Lot of small  
  
dwarf stars around here. Pathetically stable. Hasn't been a good  
  
supernova for at least four trillion years."  
  
That helped, Michiru thought. Not much.  
  
"Ah, so.... Do I have to present you with a ticket, or   
  
something?" She flashed her eyes at him, in the hope he would say  
  
no. He looked at her as if she was strange.  
  
"What would you need a ticket for?"  
  
"Well, every other rail service I've used has them."  
  
He chuckled. "No fear of that on this rail line. It's paid  
  
for by the corporate structures that run the planet." He smiled.  
  
"Now, if you will excuse me, I think I can hear Kysu-Myryche calling  
  
for me in the next cabin."  
  
"Kysu-Myryche...." Michiru's head was spinning. The   
  
conductor merely smiled and stepped out of the cabin, shutting the   
  
door behind him.  
  
She rubbed her face with her hands and took a few deep   
  
breaths. Information overload was starting to set in. She stood   
  
and stared out of the window.  
  
He had been right. There was nothing but small hills and   
  
grass plains out there. For as far as the eye could see.  
  
She only realised, just then, that the conductor had had a   
  
tail, sticking out the rear end of his uniform.  
  
"Cute." Was all she could say before she lay down on the bunk   
  
and threw the pillow over her head.  
  
END OF PART 5  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
S T O P  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
DDFA darkdayforanime@hotmail.com  
  
29th Apr 1998 


	6. Part 6: Chrysanthemum Blood

**USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI **

**by DARK DAY FOR ANIME  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. This means I'm only using the Sailormoon characters for purposes benign.**

**S T A R T---------------------------------------------------------------- **

**  
**"Usagiiiiiiii....." She could hear the soft voice, whispering across her dazed and confused mind. "Uuuuuusaaaaaaagiiiiiii...." It was musical in its low tones.  
  
She opened her eyes, and stared into her face.  
  
"Ah, I see you're awake, now. That's good."  
  
Usagi blinked. "Who... What is...."  
  
""Hmm.... I could have predicted this conversation was going to start that way. You asking who I am and all that. Well, I'm not going to tell you, dearie. It just wouldn't be sporting."  
  
----o  
  
Wind raced across the tarmac as Makoto and Hotaru concluded their little tale of how they came to be at this point in time, when they obviously belonged somewhere else. Of course, Naiad also belonged to another point in time, but that was beside the point, so to speak....  
  
"Hmmm...." Naiad put a hand to her chin. "So, the problem runs that deep, does it?"  
  
"Hmmm...." Makoto put a hand to her chin. "Yes it does."  
  
Naiad sighed, dropping her hands to her side. "Why do you mock me so? I am not your enemy."  
  
Makoto and Hotaru looked at each other, a half-smile on Makoto's face, a half frown on Hotaru's.  
  
"Look...." Hotaru turned back to Naiad and stepped forward, allowing her glaive to dissipate into its dimensional pocket. "The last time we bumped into you, you were not entirely friendly...."  
  
"I have not encountered this incarnation of your beings at any previous stage." Naiad said, indignantly. "It is most unlikely that I have committed this act."  
  
"Oh, it was you alright." Makoto crossed her arms and turned aside. "You told us to stop meddling with time. That what we were doing was making things worse, whilst doing things to stuff the situation up even further...."  
  
"I do not believe this to be true...." Naiad strode forward, past Hotaru and up to Makoto. The Jupiter senshi looked at her warily. Naiad was one of the few women who could honestly be said to be taller than Makoto, a physical presence that Makoto disliked when encountering someone she didn't trust. "I would do nothing to change the timelines. What is set in stone must remain that way. Time paradoxes, by their very nature, cannot exist...."  
  
"So what do you call that?" Makoto pointed at the bodies of Sailormoon, Mars, Mercury and Jadeite. "I'd call that a monumental stuff up in your theory."  
  
"A time paradox cannot occur because it creates events that cancel out the cause. Therefore, a time paradox cannot exist. This reality is a splinter."  
  
Makoto blinked, not comprehending. "A splinter?"  
  
"Every fraction of a nanosecond, a splinter reality is created. That is what the passages through the worlds of the dead lead to.... Alternate realities are created that are not the core reality. We exist as a part of the core reality. Every possibility that is to exist happens to us...."  
  
Makoto's head spun through all this metaphysical jargon. Hotaru stepped up behind Naiad. "What you're saying is, it doesn't matter if she goes through time, screwing around with events. These events will never change the core events of time."  
  
Naiad looked aside at her. "There is a limitation. That is why the doors to the worlds of the dead must remain closed, accessable to only a very few...."  
  
"What is that limitation?"  
  
"When the splinters involve major events in history, creating larger divergents.... Then the splinters start to have splinters, and so on and soforth.... The smaller the event creating the splinter, then the more likely that that timeline shall fade back into the core reality...."  
  
"So we can only have so many major blots on the copybook, so to speak?" Makoto chuckled. "Then we start to run out of space for all the new realities created."  
  
"Precisely."  
  
"What would happen if too many major splinters are created?" Hotaru asked, a dark thought coming to her mind.  
  
"A mass annhialation.... The core timeline shall be destroyed, time shall cease to exist.... What remains shall be a jumble of confused and incomprehensible elements...."  
  
"Chaos, in other words?"  
  
"Indeed."  
  
Hotaru and Makoto felt a cold chill run through them.

**----o**

**  
****Part Six ****  
****Chrysanthemum Blood**

**  
----o**

"BAH!" Miste Kiele threw her hands in the air, striding purposefully around her darkened bedroom. "How dare you invade my private domain to address me with such lies."  
  
"The truth....." Ami started, softly. "....Is sometimes hard to accept."  
  
"Accept? Accept!? I will not accept that I am to be partly responsible for the downfall of the Kingdom." She turned on Ami and stepped up to her. "So you're my future life, eh? I guess one can go backwards in their development, after all...."  
  
Ami smiled. "Your insults don't work on me, I'm afraid. You're only berating someone who has learnt from your mistakes."  
  
Miste sneered. "Do you really think I shall betray my position? I am the Senshi of Mercury. I promise you, I take the duties of that role very seriously."  
  
"And they are?"  
  
"To defend my Queen from attack, be they physical, psychological or otherwise." Miste crossed her arms as Ami smiled back at her.  
  
"And who is your Queen?"  
  
"There is no Queen, at present. The old Queen Serenity has passed on.... Wait...." Miste looked at her intently.  
  
"Yes, indeed. The new Queen is to be Tranquility, not the Princess Serenity." Miste's face went dark, and she turned from Ami, trying to hide that expression. Ami's smile also faded. "Now let me ask you, Miste.... To whom do you hold your loyalties?"  
  
"To the Queen, of course."  
  
"Are you so sure?"  
  
Miste did not answer.  
  
----o  
  
Hotaru stood, triumphantly, over the unconcious forms of the anti-Usagi extremists as the crowd, standing around the scene outside of the hospital, started to applaud. Hotaru put a hand behind her head and giggled inanely.  
  
"Arigato...." She felt embarassed to be the centre of attention like this.  
  
"Puuuuuu...." Said the small, white bunny senshi, sitting on the bodies of the thugs, smiling. Hotaru turned to it, confounded but amused by her saviour.  
  
"Uh, thanks for your help.... Sailor PuPuPu....?"  
  
"Pu puuuuu." Sailor PuPuPu waved one of her little paws at Hotaru, then with a dramatic flourish, bowed to the crowd and leapt high into the air. "Pu puuuuuuuuuuu........" It landed on the building from which it had made its entrance and turned one last time to the crowd.  
  
"Three cheers for Sailor PuPuPu...." Hotaru heard someone say as she watched Makoto being helped out of the crowd by a young woman, with cat's ears and a tail, dressed in a semi-official police uniform. "Hip hip...."  
  
"HOORAY!" The crowd chanted.  
  
"Hip hip...."  
  
"HOORAY!"  
  
As the crowd gave its last cheer, Sailor PuPuPu waved to her adoring fans, and bounded dramatically into the darkness....  
  
"What the fuck was that about?" Said Makoto when she reached Hotaru. The dark-haired senshi shrugged.  
  
"Buggered if I know, pal. Buggered if I know...."  
  
----o  
  
Usagi stared at the stranger. She was dressed in a singlet and denim shorts, and wore her long, silver-white hair down, without the odango affectations. So in some respects, this wasn't the same person. However....  
  
She tried to move, but found her arms had been tied to the back of the chair in which she had been sitting. "Why have you tied me like this? Who are you anyway?"  
  
"Who am I...." The double lifted up her head, staring at the ceiling of the dark, bare room they were in. "I really wish I knew. I thought I was you, but it seems I made a mistake."  
  
"How could you be me? I'm me. At least, I think I'm me. I was me the last time I looked." Usagi's head began to spin. "Enough of this.... Why have you tied me up like this?"  
  
"Because I don't want you wandering about. It's not good practice, you see, when you've kidnapped someone, to allow them to chance an escape. Even, in your case, to go through the henshin procedure, and become Eteranal Sailormoon, or whatever you like to call yourself."  
  
"Why have you kidnapped me?" Usagi was furious. Her double shook her head and giggled, which faded into a cackle that caused a chill to run down Usagi's spine.  
  
"Oh, it's 'why' this and 'why' that, is it? You really are the most unimaginative individual. I can barely believe I was spawned from someone as overtly stupid as you."  
  
"How dare you.... Just you WAIT!" Usagi started to thrash about in her chair, causing it to topple sideways. She crashed to the floor with a painful thump. For a few moments more, she was flying amongst the stars. When she came to, the double's face was in hers again. Not a pleasant sight from floor-level.  
  
"What did you think you were going to achieve by that little display of emotion? An easy escape?"  
  
"You can't just call me stupid and get away with it...."  
  
"But I did. It isn't any more likely that you're going to thump me from where you're lying now than when you were sitting up."  
  
"Oooooh! Just wait until I get my hands on you!"  
  
"And you'll do what, eh?" She poked Usagi's nose with a finger. "Bite my ankles, or something to that effect?"  
  
"Bitch."  
  
"Aww, now that's just TOO nasty. Wouldn't it be better if I sat you up, like a good little girl?" Her double simpered. It made Usagi feel sick.  
  
"Why would I want any help from you? You've kidnapped me, for whatever reason, and you've tied me up in this chair. Just what the hell is going on, here?"  
  
"Oh, so you'd prefer it if I left you on the floor? Have it your own way, then." The double stood and walked across the floor, stopping at the far wall, chuckling. Usagi blinked in surprise.  
  
"Hey, I didn't mean it that way. You can't leave me on the floor...." The double ignored her. "Hey! Please, I can't stay like this.... I get funny dizzy spells.... Hoi!"  
  
"You should have thought of that before you dissed me, bitch. Now you're stuck down there. What are you going to do about it?"  
  
----o  
  
"Your allegiances have always.... ALWAYS... been to Serenity. You allowed yourself to get close to the girl. You NEVER allow yourself to get close to anyone, and yet, with Serenity, you found a power of will you could not ignore. And so, to find that she is not to be Queen must have come as a monumental shock to you."  
  
"My duty is to my Queen." Miste's response to Ami's statement carried an annoyed tone. Ami paused for a few moments, allowing the words to sink into Miste's mind.  
  
"So why are you leaving the Palace to take up the position of Serenity's advisor in her new role as a colonial Governess?"  
  
"Because I follow my heart. My heart tells me that I shall find more joy in life as Serenity's advisor than to be couped up here in the Palace."  
  
"Yes, the Palace does have an awfully anaemic atmosphere. However, I wonder if that statement really rings true...."  
  
"Are you suggesting that I am lying?" Miste turned on Ami.  
  
"I don't really believe, for one moment, that someone with the political drive that you have had in your time is willing to give everything away because of an attack of the warm fuzzies." Ami almost laughed at Miste's expression.  
  
"What do you mean, 'warm fuzzies'?" Miste asked, slowly.  
  
"I mean, you are a puppeteer. You're more at home manipulating people than making yourself feel good by doing charitable works."  
  
"I beg to differ. I am the convenor and patron of many of the Kingdom's charities."  
  
"Well bully for you.... I'm sure everyone thinks of you as a warm and cuddly individual. It doesn't change the fact that, after a week of the fresh air around Garnia, you'll be itching to chop some tall poppy down. You might even take to lynching the poor and stealing candy from babies to get your kicks."  
  
"That does it. I don't have to listen to this from you." Miste ranged up on Ami, threateningly.  
  
"Remember who I am, Miste? I am your future life. I have learnt from the mistakes YOU made." Ami prodded Miste in the chest, displaying absolutely no fear of her. Miste was taken aback by Ami's brazen attitude.  
  
There certainly were aspects of her that had survived her passing, that was for sure.  
  
----o  
  
Makoto and Hotaru sat quietly in one of the offices at the hospital. CereCere rubbed Makoto's back, trying to relax the pent-up frustrations of the tall woman.  
  
"Dammit!" Makoto punched a fist into her other hand. "Where in Kami's name did they get themselves a rubicon. I thought the last one of those was dispensed with when we raided Rubi's shrine fortress...."  
  
Natsagi, the young policewoman who had attended the scene, leant against the wall beside the door, looking out as hospital workers cleared away the damage from the attack by the Usagi extremists. "Did you really think you were going to be able to rid yourselves of the problem by ridding yourselves of all the rubicons that had been constructed?" She sniffed and pawed at her hair. Makoto stared at her as she became distracted and started licking herself. "Nyaa... Nyaa..."  
  
"Well, she is a cat...." Hotaru sweatdropped.  
  
"What she says is true, though." CereCere leant over Makoto's shoulder. "We smashed the symptoms, but not the cause. We never found the plans for the rubicon, itself."  
  
Natsagi wiggled her ears and returned to the conversation. "We've had some problem with criminals using the rubicon against those of us who have magic powers. So far, none of us have been able to find who is constructing them...."  
  
"Most likely not in this town." Hotaru nodded.  
  
"If it had been in this town, we'd have caught them by now." Natsagi screwed up her nose in a kawaii fashion. "Anyway, now that my people have the identities of the individuals who attacked this hospital, we'll be able to track down where they got their hands on the rubicon...."  
  
"I certainly hope so." Hotaru looked at the floor.  
  
At that moment, Usako and Umi appeared in teh doorway. Umi had a smile on her face as wide as the Grand Canyon, as she carried a small, white bundle into the room. "Hey guys, look what I found while we were hiding...."  
  
Everyone in the room looked up. In Umi's arms sat a small bunny thing. For a moment, both Hotaru and Makoto blinked.  
  
"Puuu...." Said the bunny. Umi hugged the bunny tightly.  
  
"Isn't she just the cutest thing you've ever seen? I've called her Mokosagi." Umi pointed to the small tuft of gold hair sitting on top of the bunny's head. "I think she's another Usagi clone. She certainly seems to like the name. Don't you, Mokosagi?"  
  
"Puuu..." Mokosagi nodded in agreement.  
  
Hotaru was the first to speak. "It couldn't be...."  
  
Makoto was next. "It has to be...."  
  
They both stared at each other, then shook their heads.  
  
"Nahhh... It couldn't be that obvious." Hotaru shrugged.  
  
"Puuu...." Mokosagi said, with her perpetual smile.  
  
----o  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
Usagi opened her eyes.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
She looked up.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
There was something swinging over her.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
Attached to the ceiling.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
It had a large blade on the end, making slashing movements across her middle. She let out a gasp, and could hear laughter from all around.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
She tried to move away, but found she had been tied down.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
She was tied down to a pool table. She turned aside, and saw all of the members of the Hotel's Activities Room watching her, drooling. Even the monitor was standing there, taking bets on how long she would last before she finally broke....  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
That might not be very long, at the rate the blade was being lowered.... She wanted her teddy, right here, right now....  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
....And slowly, her tenuous hold on reality started to slip.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
She felt the urge to scream.  
  
Swing, slice....  
  
And then there were explosions. Other people began to scream for her as she felt blood splatter over her body. At first, she thought she'd been struck by the swinging blade, and closed her eyes to endure the pain in her final moments. But there was no pain, What there was, following the fading screams and explosions, was a few moments of silence, where she felt her bonds being relaxed.  
  
She opened her eyes, to see the Security Guard, leering over her. She sat up quickly, almost banging their heads together, holding her hands over body, as if she were naked.  
  
"What is...." She looked at him for a few moments, and realised he wasn't alone. There were five other Security Guards with him, carting away the bodies of the Activities Room residents.  
  
She almost fainted. He chuckled.  
  
"I told you not to get involved in their little games." He shrugged and turned away. Usagi climbed off the pool table and slided around to the opposite side. She put her poot into something, and realised it was the monitor's shattered head. She screwed up her face as she removed her foot and shook it with disgust.  
  
"I didn't try to get involved. I didn't really have any choice in the matter." She started to pick her way towards the rear door of the large room. The Security Guard half-looked at her.  
  
"At least you didn't use the lifts, like I told you to."  
  
"Never use the lifts. Right. Thanks for reminding me." She turned and ran around the swimming pool, almost slipping on the wet surface surrounding it, and made her way through the rear door.... Which was rather painful, since she didn't have an opportunity to open it first. The Security Guard winced, then patted his gun.  
  
"Don't worry.... We'll have her down to you in no time, my master." He smiled.  
  
----o  
  
Usagi growled and started thrashing about. "I'll get you! I'll get you for this!"  
  
"Why?" The double turned and looked down at Usagi, her face a softened mask. Usagi stopped and frowned at her. She just couldn't work this girl out.  
  
"Umm.... About sitting me up again...."  
  
"Say please." The double smiled. Usagi clenched her teeth.  
  
"Puhleeeeeeze...." Oh, how she hated saying that. The double smiled and stepped over to her. With a grunt, the double had righted Usagi and the chair. She stood back, patting Usagi on the head.  
  
"See, that wasn't too hard, was it?"  
  
Usagi fumed, then feigned a friendlier expression. "So, umm, can you puhleeeeeeeeze tell me who you are, and what is going on, here?"  
  
The double smiled sweetly. "Of course I will. Niceness begets niceness, you know." She stepped back and leaned on the wall. "You see, I've saved you from being killed."  
  
"Killed? Me?" Usagi sweatdropped. "Who would want to kill me?" The double shrugged.  
  
"Your friends, for one thing, although I dare suggest they aren't feeling this way because of anything they have control over."  
  
"My friends? What do you mean, my friends?"  
  
"Your senshi. Our senshi. Those traitors who have pretended to be our senshi.... Whatever you want to call them...." The double's face went dark. "I know, now, it wasn't their fault, but how can I let it go? This anger...."  
  
"I don't believe you...." Usagi said, eventually, after boggling over this little piece of information. "They would never do that to me..."  
  
"Are you so blind as to not have seen the signs?" The double spat, angrily, then put up her hands, calming herself. "Sorry, sorry.... Yes, you are indeed blind enough not to have seen the signs of their incipient betrayal.... You... We trusted them with our lives. We loved them and thought they loved us back. But love is such a tenuous emotion when it comes to the kind of psychological manipulation that they have undergone...." She clenched her fists. "Their minds have virtually been raped, by being greater than them,  
and they don't even realise that this has happened...."  
  
"So.... Why kidnap me like this? Why tie me up and all...."  
  
"Because they will chase you here.... By removing you from that stream of history, I have changed everything that was to follow. Even my own creation. And yet, I still exist. What does that say to the concept of the time paradox, eh? What does that say about my existence? I'm strong enough.... POWERFUL enough... to resist the pull of the paradox."  
  
Usagi recoiled as her double leapt forward, slamming her hands down on Usagi's shoulders. "I can do anything, because I've been removed from the seed of my creation. I am now an individual entity, with thoughts and feelings of my own, dragged from the worlds of the dead by a power greater than you can conceive. Now I shall change time, to create a universe where the destiny to which you were born shall come to pass...."  
  
Usagi was about to say something, when her double clamped her lips over hers in a passionate kiss. Usagi couldn't fight her strength, and felt sickened by the expression of lust, or love, or whatever it was her double was trying to express. The double pulled herself away, panting heavily, and gripped Usagi by the back of her hair.  
  
"Yes.... Together, we shall change HISTORY! Like it has never been changed before...." 

**END OF PART 6**

**S T O P---------------------------------------------------------------- **

**Next Chapter - "A Shy City"  
  
DDFA  
  
Version 1.0 - 13th May 1998 **


	7. Part 7: History Never Repeats

**USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI by DARK DAY FOR ANIME**  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. This means I'm only using the Sailormoon characters for purposes benign. Or less than, as the case may be ;)  
  
S T A R T -------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"This is it, folks! Over the top!"  
  
Take a Long Line - The Angels  
  
OPENING STANZA....  
  
"So.... Why kidnap me like this? Why tie me up and all...."  
Usagi stared up from the floor, where the chair she was tied to had fallen, at her captor with a mixture of anger and fear, and both because she was staring at herself. Something she had a hard time getting used to. After all, it wasn't everyday that you were kidnapped and ripped from the stream of history by someone that looked like you....  
  
Her double merely grinned, almost drooling in the process, a lascivious expression that only heightened Usagi's disgust. "Because they will chase you here.... By removing you from that stream of history, I have changed everything that was to follow. Even my own creation. And yet, I still exist."  
  
Her double held her hands aloft, staring at the ceiling in an almost messianic fashion. She stopped and looked down at Usagi, her eyes wide and manic.  
  
"What does that say to the concept of the time paradox, eh? What does that say about my existence? I'm strong enough.... POWERFUL enough... to resist the pull of the paradox."  
  
Usagi recoiled as her double leapt forward, slamming her hands down on Usagi's shoulders. "I can do anything, because I've been removed from the seed of my own creation. I am now an individual entity, with thoughts and feelings of my own, dragged from the worlds of the dead by a power greater than you can conceive. Now I shall change time, to create a universe where the destiny to which you were born shall come to pass...."  
  
Usagi was about to say something, when her double clamped her lips over hers in a passionate kiss. Usagi couldn't fight her strength, and felt sickened by the expression of lust, or love, or whatever it was her double was trying to express. The double pulled herself away, panting heavily, and gripped Usagi by the back of her hair, pressing their cheeks together. She pointed a finger in the air, a distant expression on her face.  
  
"Yes.... Together, we shall change HISTORY! Like it has never been changed before...."  
  
----o  
  
**Part Seven **

**History Never Repeats**  
  
----o  
  
CHANGES....  
  
Mamoru turned the key to his apartment door, and immediately he knew something was afoot.  
  
He'd just said goodbye to his beloved Usako, having seen her home after a wonderful dinner at a reasonably expensive restaurant.  
Of course, Usagi, still being 16 and reasonably immature, went nuts over the food and took a hefty bite out of his tight budget. Good thing he'd saved up for just such an possibility.  
  
Feeling happy after receiving a goodnight kiss, he'd decided to walk home, it being a warm night and all. Well, walk was a relative concept. Float would be more accurate a term. The relationship between both Usagi and himself, despite being a little rocky at times, was beginning to settle in.... For the first time,  
he'd begun to get used to the concept of actually being in love.  
  
Not that he hadn't felt anything for Usagi before, but he often wondered just how many of those feelings were being driven by the emotions of his past life. Because of this, he had always felt a certain nervousness.... an uncomfortable feeling, about being close to Usagi.  
  
There were other factors, of course. The drives of his past life, virtually working against the relationship.... The momentary intervention of Rei (he had almost allowed himself to fall for her,  
the rather incestuous closeness of Chibiusa.... (a scary thought in retrospect).... There had been so many things that had scared him from committing to the relationship.  
  
But now.... Now he felt totally at ease with her. Not only was he settling, but she was beginning to fall into the pattern of her Serenity persona. This emotional stability.... this quietness,  
had finally cemented the feelings he had been ignoring for so long.  
  
It still didn't change the fact that, as soon as he'd opened the door to his apartment, he just KNEW something was up. The first thing to stand out was the Usagi in the butler's tuxedo (something of an irony, there), standing in the doorway.  
  
"Ah, the man of the house has finally arrived." She said, in a slightly cultured accent that was totally unsuited to her. "Please follow me, master Mamoru." She bowed and gestured into the apartment.  
  
Mamoru was so astounded that he followed her in, speechlessly.  
All the lights in his apartment were on, and lining the walls of the loungeroom were a half dozen Usagis, in french maid costumes. Not that he minded this, it was just a little out of place. For a start, there was only supposed to be one Usagi. But too much was happening, too quickly, for him to think things over in a logical manner.  
  
"Wh.... What on Earth is going on here? Who are you people?"  
He stopped at the entrance to the loungeroom. The butler turned and scowled at him, lowering her face with patent disapproval.  
  
"Master Mamoru, it is not good to keep our lady, Serenity, waiting. Please proceed to the bedroom forthwith." She turned and stepped over to the doorway that lead to the passage. With a flourish with her arms, she turned back to him and gestured to the doorway.  
  
As Mamoru slowly stepped into the room, the maids bowed, one by one, as he passed.  
  
"Welcome home, Master Mamoru..." They would say. He looked at them. Each and every one of them was precisely the same. The golden hair, done up in those super-kawaii odangos and ponytails, sitting underneath the little caps. The black and white dresses,  
hugging their waists' in a rather interesting fashion. The short, frilly skirts.... The suspenders and stockings....  
  
Mamoru found himself drooling. Despite his misgivings about the situation, his ecchi side had taken the controls. This could be heaven.... Then again, this was Usagi.... It could be hell on Earth....  
  
He shook his head, trying to clear out those thoughts. What was he doing? He was allowing the situation to get control of him.  
  
"Hurry up, Master Mamoru.... the Lady Serenity grows impatient." The butler peered from the passage door after stepping through, beckoning to him with an arm. Mamoru managed to avert his gaze from the maids and followed her, through the passage and up to his bedroom door.  
  
He could smell the gentle fragrance of incense, wafting from the tiny cracks around the bedroom door. The butler stood beside it and watched as he sniffed.... A kind of soft musk. He placed his hand on the doorknob to open it, only for the butler to smack him across the back of that hand.  
  
Whipping the hand away, he stared at her with surprise. "What did you do that for?" It IS my bedroom, was what he was going to add, but he wasn't given the opportunity as the butler leaned forward, prodding him hard in the chest with a very stern finger.  
  
"One should not enter the domain of the Lady of the house without announcing one's presence." She chided him. He swallowed as she softly tapped on the door. This was nuts. Now he was letting himself be criticised by someone who may or may not be Usagi....  
  
"Haiii...." Said a soft voice from within. Mamoru jumped, even though he expected an answer. After all, what else COULD he expect?  
  
"Ma'am.... His most gracious Lord Endymion has arrived home."  
The butler Usagi looked at Mamoru with a cheeky grin. Mamoru smiled back, more a nervous reaction than a knowing expression.  
  
"Ah. Send him in immediately." The voice carried a hint of amusement, and the butler smiled, nodding to Mamoru.  
  
"Now you can enter, my lord."  
  
Mamoru looked at the butler, then at the door. Slowly, he mustered up the energy to bring his hand to the doorknob again. He turned the knob, opened the door, and looked within.  
  
"Ah, my dear Mamo-chan.... Where have you been? It is so late." Said the seductive figure of the young woman, dressed only in lace underwear, lounging on the king-sized bed that replaced his normal one in his massively enlarged bedroom.  
  
His jaw hit the floor. "Usa.... ko....?"  
  
"Hai, Mamo-chan?" Usagi smiled.  
  
----o  
  
MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH....  
  
Usagi staggered through the corridor of the Hotel, away from the Activities Room, feeling less than fortunate to have been saved by that dirty, lewd Security Guard....  
  
It was only then that she realised she was being followed.  
By a young girl. Younger than herself. The girl had been sitting off to one side in the Activities Room, and had been spared the more violent ministrations of the Security Guard and his cohorts, probably because all she did was sit there and do nothing.  
  
The girl had a pasty white face and deep shadows around her eyes. Her light brown hair was unkempt and unwashed and she wore a dirty red jumper and grey skirt. She was barefoot.  
  
Usagi looked back at her as she shambled along, nervously contemplating what fresh hell this denizen of the Hotel wished to bring to her.  
  
This was what was going through her mind when she struck the door at the end of the corridor, leading to the safe stairwell she had been told to take by the Security Guard.  
  
She fell to the floor, dazed. For a few minutes, she was lying back in a hot spring, counting Pen2's as they floated past.  
Then she felt herself being shaken awake by a soft and gentle hand.  
  
"Oneechan? Oneechan?" Usagi opened her eyes, and stared up into the girl's almost soulless, dark-rimmed peepers. "Are you alright, Oneechan?" The girl mumbled, helping the stunned Usagi sit up.  
  
"I.... I think so.... Who are you?" Usagi looked at the girl, who was kneeling next to her.  
  
"Who am I?" The girl blinked her tired eyes. "I am.... I was.... My name was.... It's hard for me to remember." The girl looked away.  
  
"Yeah... Great." Usagi rubbed her forehead. "Oh, I could murder for a aspirin right now...."  
  
"Aspirin?" The girl turned back to Usagi. "I seem to remember that word...."  
  
Usagi looked at the girl as if she was mad. "What do you mean, you seem to remember that word? EVERYBODY knows what aspirin is."  
  
"They do?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Sorry. I've been a bit out of it for a while, now."  
  
Yes, thought Usagi, you look like you have. "Do you know where we are?" She thought she might try and ask. There was no harm in it, at least.  
  
"The Hotel." The girl replied, absently.  
  
"Thanks. I know this is the Hotel. WHERE is the Hotel, is what I wanted to know."  
  
The girl continued to look at her blandly. "Only the manager of the Hotel knows that. The rest of us know better to ask. You would be well advised to do the same."  
  
"Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather check out of this no star dive. Call me a bad guest, but I'm not exactly enamoured of its facilities."  
  
"Rina." The girl said, suddenly.  
  
"Eh?"  
  
"Matsumoto Rina. Yes, that's my name. Been a long time since I told anyone. So hard to remember, now.... Can't remember when I got here...."  
  
"Ano... Rina?"  
  
"Hai?" The girl smiled at Usagi, tiredly.  
  
"Can you help me to my feet?"  
  
"Hai." Rina stood, helping Usagi to do the same. "May I be permitted to ask you your name?" She leaned forward, staring into Usagi's face blankly. Usagi swallowed.  
  
"Usagi.... Tsukino Usagi...."  
  
Rina chuckled. "Rabbit on the moon. How quaint." Her face became a bit more serious. "I take it you were thrown out of your room?"  
  
"Umm.... Yeah. By the room, no less. Why do you ask?"  
  
"You wouldn't be wandering around the Hotel in your underwear,  
otherwise. I was thrown out of my room, too. It took me five days before I could find myself an even barely decent set of clothes."  
  
Usagi looked down at Rina's dirty clothes. "How long ago was that?" Rina frowned, then turned in lost thought.  
  
"Umm.... I can't quite remember. It was a long time ago.  
I think I stepped into the Activities Room about a month ago. I've been in there ever since...."  
  
"A month ago!?!?" Usagi felt a cold shiver run through her.  
Getting out of this Hotel might be more difficult than she thought.  
  
----o  
  
MORE CHANGES....  
  
"Well, I must say, here's another fine mess you've gotten us into...." Princess Serenity, aka Usagi, stared down at the silence glaive, the handle of which was protruding from her chest. In front of her, the young Sailorsaturn shifted her feet, hands behind her back, looking like a schoolgirl who had been caught out doing the wrong thing.  
  
"I tripped, okay? It was an accident."  
  
Behind her, the amorphous figure of Pharaoh 90, who had been the intended target of the glaive, facefaulted and fell to Earth in disbelief. Serenity and Saturn watched as it crawled into a corner and muttered.  
  
"I give up. How am I supposed to feel anything about conquering the universe when the forces of light are so bloody incompetent. I'm sure it wasn't like this for Metallia.... Mumble mumble turtle scrubs mumble mumble...."  
  
"Looks like we got it demoralised." Saturn muttered, cringing under a disbelieving stare from Serenity.  
  
"You could, at the very least, whilst performing a Death Ribbon Revolution, to rid this world of menaces like Pharaoh 90, check to see if anyone is in range when you swing this thing around." Serenity coughed blood as she pulled the glaive from her chest and held it out to Saturn. "Yours, I believe."  
  
"Umm... Yeah, thanks." Saturn took the glaive and turned back to the shambling presence of Pharaoh 90. "Now, where were we?"  
  
"Death Ribbon Revolution. You'll find it in the dictionary under D, next to Dork, Dickhead, Dumkopf, Dipstick and a couple other words not worth repeating right now." Serenity offered, and promptly died.  
  
"Oh yeah, that was it." Saturn waved a finger in the air as Serenity's body fell at her feet.  
  
Pluto, Uranus and Neptune watched this train of disastrous ineptitude from a safe distance.... Safe being a technical term considering nowhere on Earth was safe, now.  
  
"Well, there goes your messiah." Uranus turned aside to Pluto, who shrugged.  
  
"So what. I can't always predict when strange young women are going to jump out of the doorways to the worlds of the dead and trip up a sailorsenshi in full flight." Setsuna put her hands up, helplessly, reminding the others of the Serenity lookalike with the strange expression of madness on her face, who had, as Pluto stated,  
stepped out of nowhere and put a foot in Saturn's path, causing the aformentioned events.  
  
"Where did that silver-haired bitch go, anyway?" Neptune rubbed her chin as Saturn started the end of the world with much banging and crashing of thunder.  
  
"Dunno. Probably back through the same doorway, or another much like it." Rumble crash rumble. "Doesn't look like we're going to get an opportunity to find out, does it?"  
  
"DEATH RIBBON.... REVOLUTION!"  
  
"By the way.... Is it 'Ribbon' or 'Reborn'? Never could work that one out...." Neptune asked Pluto. The elder senshi was not given an opportunity to answer.  
  
Everything exploded into a large expanse of white....  
  
----o  
  
INTELLECTUAL INTERLUDE....  
  
"Aww bugger shit damn!" Makoto found herself floating through a series of blue clouds, all of which were immediately recognisable to her, much to her chagrin. "What the hell did you do this, for? I don't wanna ever come back to this place for as long as I live."  
  
She looked over at Naiad, who was also floating, mesmerised by the patterns of the blue clouds. She roused herself from her musings. "Ah, yes, well.... There was something I had to ask you."  
  
"What?" Makoto looked up at the blue sky, lit by a pale blue sun. Was everything here blue? Not really.... Most of the clouds themselves were wispy and white.... Something she'd obviously failed to notice on her previous visit. She still didn't want to be here.... To take notice of these amazing little packets of detail.  
  
"Before I entered the doorways of the dead, to find who it was that had been playing with time, I experienced a vision.... within the dream of Tranquility, the Queen to be of the Moon Kingdom."  
  
"Oh her." Makoto blinked without understanding. Naiad sighed.  
  
"Serenity's replacement."  
  
"Oh her." For a few moments, Makoto was none the wiser, as Naiad proceeded to pull out her hair. How could she be in the presence of such a decerebrate individual, the Miko thought to herself. Then a look of realisation crossed Makoto's face. "You mean Naru-chan, don't you?"  
  
"Naru-chan...." Naiad thought for a few moments. "Her next life.... Well, whatever.... I experienced this in a dream of hers,  
and somehow, you were connected to it."  
  
Makoto's face became an expression of exasperation. She wasn't really vaguely interested in this thread of conversation. "In what way?" She asked, painfully.  
  
A figure fell between them, crying out in mortal fear as she did so. Makoto watched herself, dressed in her traditional, and lately lamented, green and white senshi fuku, tumble towards a small object that was floating in the lower cloud decks.  
  
"Oh... I see... That way." Makoto sweatdropped. "Well, that's kind of hard to explain, really...." She looked up, and saw the door close on the passageway of the dead she had fallen through in the dim distant past. A passage that lead to Earth, shortly before all of her friends.... All that she knew, with the exception of a very few, were killed.  
  
"You said you never wanted to return to this place, again.  
Why? What happened here? And why would the Queen-elect dream of this event?" Naiad rubbed her hands together, desperate for the answer to the dream.  
  
Makoto sighed, looking back down at her. "How would I know, fer chrissakes.... I'm not her. Maybe she had eaten too many pork dumplings for dinner or something...."  
  
Naiad rubbed her face with her hands and counted from ten to one. "How about the events that are taking place here? Why do they hold such a sense of fear and trepidation for you? Enough to make you resist returning...."  
  
Makoto turned away. Not easy to do when one was floating in mid-air, thus negating any solid surface with which to actually balance the motion. "I'd really rather not talk about it.... It's too personal."  
  
"How did you find yourself in this place?"  
  
"I'm not sure.... One moment I was on Earth, the next...." Makoto pointed a finger upwards, then dropped the finger down towards the rapidly disappearing object.  
  
"A door to the worlds of the dead opened up beneath your feet?" Naiad seemed prompted by searching Makoto's thoughts. The senshi curled up, holding her knees.  
  
"Stay out of there. This mind belongs to me." Makoto spat,  
bitterly, shivering with anger. Naiad was surprised by the vitriol.  
  
"I'm sorry...."  
  
"No you're not. You read my thoughts... Entering the very core of my being in a cavalier manner. Don't you ever give thought to your actions? To what you're capable of doing to others?"  
  
"What are you afraid of? In this place?"  
  
"Fortress Makoto, that's what my mind is. I will kill you if you even so much as try to do what you just did, again."  
  
"Jupiter...." Naiad started.  
  
"Take me away from here." Makoto turned, almost lashing out at Naiad....  
  
For a fraction of a second, Naiad saw a being of immense size and ethereal beauty.... Its form made of gossamyr-like thread. It descended upon what looked like a floating glass and metal airship. And immediately, Naiad realised that this was the fearful memory that Makoto was hiding within....  
  
----o  
  
MYSTERIOUS FRIENDS....  
  
"I feel strangely tired..." Usagi said as Rina helped her through the doorway to the stairwell. Rina nodded in the blank manner she seemed to have perfected.  
  
"You do, after a while. It might have something to do with all the crap you go through in here, but it's like all your energy is slowly drained out of you...."  
  
Usagi looked at Rina's face. The whiteness of her pallour,  
combined with the dark rings around the eyes, made her feel a certain queaziness. "You look pretty awful, you know that?"  
  
"Thanks. I try to keep up the image." Rina chuckled. "I started to look like this after the first few days. It seemed to get better, every time I tried to get back into my room. Almost like one has to stay in their rooms to remain healthy in this place."  
  
"Why did your room throw you out?"  
  
Rina looked at Usagi, tiredly. "I was confused, okay? I didn't know the room was trying to look after me. It wanted me to be warm and comfortable. For me to sleep in that nice warm bed. Forever.... and ever and ever...."  
  
"Forever?"  
  
"That's the thing, you see. The room is like a womb.... It's almost an allegory to death. You just want to curl up and let the darkness of an eternal sleep take you over in there." Rina turned away, staring blankly ahead of her.  
  
"Then.... Surely, getting out of those rooms is a good thing,  
is it not?" Usagi let out a short gasp of strain as Rina helped her to sit on the first step of the 'down' stairs. Rina sat beside her.  
  
"It's like birth, you see.... Once out of the womb, the world starts taking a physical and emotional toll on you. You start to die in a colder and more horrible way, both inside and out."  
  
END OF PART 7

S T O P-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
DDFA  
  
Version 2.0 - 24th Jun 1998


	8. Part 8: Warmth and Protection

**Title: Usagi is Dead II Dead is Usagi Part 8 **

**Author: Dark Day For Anime (Mark A Page)**

**Fic Rating: R**  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
**USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI by DARK DAY FOR ANIME**  
  
Diclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. This means I'm only using the Sailormoon characters for purposes benign. Or malign. Whatever comes first.  
  
**S T A R T -------------------------------------------------------------------**  
  
"This is it, folks! Over the top!"  
  
Take a Long Line - The Angels  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
**MYSTERIOUS FRIENDS....**  
  
"I feel strangely tired..." Usagi said as Rina helped her through the doorway to the stairwell. Rina nodded in the blank manner she seemed to have perfected.  
  
"You do, after a while. It might have something to do with all the crap you go through in here, but it's like all your energy is slowly drained out of you...."  
  
Usagi looked at Rina's face. The whiteness of her pallour,  
combined with the dark rings around the eyes, made her feel a certain queaziness. "You look pretty awful, you know that?"  
  
"Thanks. I try to keep up the image." Rina chuckled. "I started to look like this after the first few days. It seemed to get better, every time I tried to get back into my room. Almost like one has to stay in their rooms to remain healthy in this place."  
  
"Why did your room throw you out?"  
  
Rina looked at Usagi, tiredly. "I was confused, okay? I didn't know the room was trying to look after me. It wanted me to be warm and comfortable. For me to sleep in that nice warm bed. Forever.... and ever and ever...."  
  
"Forever?"  
  
"That's the thing, you see. The room is like a womb.... It's almost an allegory to death. You just want to curl up and let the darkness of an eternal sleep take you over in there." Rina turned away, staring blankly ahead of her.  
  
"Then.... Surely, getting out of those rooms is a good thing,  
is it not?" Usagi let out a short gasp of strain as Rina helped her to sit on the first step of the 'down' stairs. Rina sat beside her.  
  
"It's like birth, you see.... Once out of the womb, the world starts taking a physical and emotional toll on you. You start to die in a colder and more horrible way, both inside and out."  
  
----O  
  
**Part Eight **

**Warmth and Protection**  
  
----o  
  
**AND SO....**  
  
"Bizarre...." Usagi pondered this for several moments. "So why are there so many people outside their rooms?"  
  
"Not everyone wants the warmth and protection.... And there are those, like us, who had no idea what was going on."  
  
"So where are we, anyway? I mean, where IS the Hotel, and how did we get here?" Usagi watched as Rina took a breath.  
  
"If anyone knew that, I'm quite sure this place would be very quiet, indeed. Everyone who doesn't accept the warmth of the rooms would be out of here in a flash. I have no idea who I am, apart from my name. I don't even know how I know that. But...." She paused. "But I get the feeling that I am dead. Or, at the very least, that I died, sometime in the near-past. Have you ever heard of an event called the Cataclysm?"  
  
Usagi shook her head, although the name did seem to stir something within her mind.  
  
"The Cataclysm. It was like a mass-extermination of life. At least, that is how I seem to remember it. Apart from that, I really don't know."  
  
"So sad, not to have any memories of your past." Usagi looked at the stairs. "I don't even have an abiding memory of that nature to grasp onto."  
  
"I was obsessed over it for a while. It was the only memory of the past I had left. Everything to me was new. Almost as if I was being allowed to see the world through the eyes of a child."  
  
"And yet, we remember how to talk. That takes an element of education. So that shows something else has slipped through that barrier of memory." Usagi rubbed her face with her hands. "I guess there really is only one way to find out what is going on. Get in with the Hotel's manager and demand some answers."  
  
"You're serious? About finding the manager and all?"  
  
"Of course I am!" Usagi barked that a little louder than she'd intended to. Rina backed her head away in surprise, making Usagi feel guilty. "Gomen.... I didn't mean..."  
  
"It's alright." Rina relaxed a little. "But I don't think it is a good idea, to go hunting down the Hotel manager."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"There have been others, like you. Others I've bumped into.  
People who have been thrown out of their rooms and demanding to see the manager...."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And so they charge off." Rina smiled, shaking her head. "I've never seen any of them again...."  
  
----O  
  
**THE LONELY END OF THE ROAD....**

A gentle but cool night breeze blew through the line of trees at the far end of the small rural township of Le'Kshier. Those trees symbolised the railway that was the lifeline for the community, the only one like it for nearly three hundred square miles.  
  
The main street of Le'Kshier, and the only properly sealed road in the township, ran from the council chambers to the railway station, like an aorta, pumping blood from the town's heart to the town's mind. And along that street, at this late hour, ambled a couple of strange figures. Strange for a township like Le'Kshier,  
since it had never seen the likes of them before.  
  
Both were women, and both wore traditional Japanese-styled attire of the early Meiji period.... Quite out of step, considering this wasn't Earth. Not that that mattered to the pair.  
  
The taller of the two, a redhead, wore a simple, loose-fitting morone-red top with a greyish skirt, brown socks and those Japanese style sandals with the small stilts on their base that made a clacking sound when the wearer walked anywhere. Right now, in the silence of the main street, it echoed almost painfully.  
  
At her left was a samurai sword within its sheath. She had a hand resting upon the handle of the weapon, as if expecting someone to attack at any moment. She had become long used to the vagaries of potential enemies.  
  
Her companion was dressed in an attractive yellow kimono, and had her dark hair tied up in a ponytail by a flowing red ribbon. She wore white socks within the same kind of sandal, and her hands were slipped within the long arms of the kimono, seemingly more at ease with her surroundings.  
  
Usashin raised her head, slightly, as they approached the railway station. In a strange kind of way, it bore a resemblance to an old rural English style of station, with an ornate Victorian-  
style guardhouse and platform, covered with ivy on its rear wall.  
There was a flower garden around the entranceway to the platform,  
lining the street. She rather liked the way it looked, never having had the opportunity to visit England in her previous life. Her companion broke her from her reverie.  
  
"Usashiiiin..." Kaorusagi whined in an annoying, high-pitched shrill, looking up at the taller girl. "Why do we have to leave this town? It was so nice here...."  
  
"Because our destiny lies within the capital." Usashin smiled at Kaorusagi beatifically, making the dark-haired girl puff up her face with annoyance.  
  
"It's cold and I'm hungry. There better be something worth eating on the train."  
  
"Honestly, Kaorusagi-dono.... You must temper this appetite of yours. You'll put on weight de gozaru."  
  
Kaorusagi's expression changed to one of tragedy, large tear rivulets running from her eyes. "You don't think I'm getting fat, do you?"  
  
"Oro..." Usashin blinked, then sweatdropped as Kaorusagi studied her figure, hard to do when dressed in a kimono.  
  
"I've tried so hard... To hold back my appetite.... Maybe I burn it all off. Yeah, that's gotta be it... I'm too active to get fat." She put her hands on her hips and let out a maniacal laugh.  
"Yes, I'm looking DAMN good." And with that, she strode along the small path that lead from the street, up to the platform entrance.  
Usashin followed her with a dubious expression.  
  
----o  
  
**FOLLOW ME DOWN THE LINE....**  
  
Michiru saw the approach of the township through her cabin window. She'd not seen the conductor since he had left to attend whomever it had been that was calling him in the other cabin. If there had actually been someone else calling him from another cabin. She hadn't heard anything before he left. It only increased the sense that she was riding on a kind of ghost train....  
  
She'd left the light off, preferring the strange darkness of this alien world of Wyccfaer. The sky had an orange hue. Not that it didn't carry the darkness of night, but the glow that the sky carried during the nocturnal hours had always been a pale shade of blue, or even a shade of white-gray.... She'd adored that shade, staring up at the sky in her younger years. This, however was orange! And the effect it had on her was rather different.  
  
This natural glow filled her cabin. All the dark spaces illuminated, giving her a strange sense of peace. In fact, everything about this world spoke volumes of peace and tranquility.  
She wondered why, but didn't argue the point with herself.  
  
It was because she could see very little else that the lights of the approaching township were so bright and vivid. So much so that it almost hurt her when they became visible over the small rise. She wondered whether the train would be stopping at this town, and immediately chided herself. If it stopped at a middle of nowhere station like the one she had boarded from, then it would most certainly stop here.  
  
Not that it looked like there would be too many people getting on the train from this town. So she was rather surprised when she saw a couple, standing in the relative darkness of the platform as the train pulled to a stop.  
  
She opened the window and peered her head through the gap, trying to catch a glimpse of who it was that was getting on board.  
  
"Whee! It's been a while since I've ridden on a train."  
  
"I thought you were against our travelling, Kaorusagi-dono."  
  
"Aww, come on. I'm allowed to change my mind when I want to."  
  
Michiru was surprised to find the pair were speaking Japanese.  
Now, not that she should have been all that surprised. The vast majority of alien visitations to the planet Earth that she had encountered had all been by individuals who were fluent in nearly every known Japanese dialect.... But considering this was a planet that was, clearly, somewhere on the other side of the universe, it was an infinity to one chance that she would bump into someone with such a capability.  
  
The Japanese was classical, even.... Almost antiquated in its pronunciation. She had learnt this style of speech during her numerous sessions of private tutorage.  
  
She couldn't see the individuals in question. They had managed to board the train long before she had managed to get the cantankerous window open. Pulling her head in, she heard the whistle of the train blow and the sounds of the doors sliding shut.  
Before the train could move, she'd thrown open the door to her cabin and was desperately looking left and right along the thin corridor of the sleeper car.  
  
She didn't know if she was in the first or second car. She hadn't so much as attempted to explore the train upon her recovery from the fright the conductor had given her. From the looks of things, when she had peered through the window, she was in the first. It also appeared that the pair of Japanese speakers had entered the train by another of the cars.  
  
For some reason, she felt herself driven to make contact with them. Leaving the door to her cabin open, she made her way along the corridor towards the rear sleeper car.  
  
----o  
  
**JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS....**  
  
"What have you done with Hotaru?" Makoto had finally uncurled herself from the foetal position that must have been way difficult to achieve, floating in a myriad of whirling and streaming blue and white clouds.  
  
"I haven't done anything with the dark child." Naiad sniffed.  
"To her, these moments we share alone shall not exist. I have removed our beings from the splinter reality, and shall return to a point only fragments of a second later."  
  
"All because of some dream. Some dream your great and honoured Queen to be had brewed up?"  
  
"I want to know WHY she had this dream.... What possible importance could these events have for her."  
  
"I really wouldn't know. Can we go back, now? I don't want to remain here a second longer."  
  
"In case you meet up with something you had seen here, before?" Naiad raised an eyebrow. The question seemed to shake Makoto, who closed her eyes and shivered.  
  
"If you know that much, then why keep me here. Stop screwing with my head and let me go, bitch!" Makoto opened her eyes and clenched her fists, looking like someone who was neck deep in a fighting mood.  
  
Naiad wasn't much into the vagaries of physical combat, and decided that any further probing of Makoto's mind, right now, would agitate the already unstable and violent frame of mind the young woman posessed. With a wave of her hand, the world of clouds dissipated into a seething mass of chaos, to be replaced by the scene on the airport runway.  
  
Makoto felt herself land, as if she had appeared in mid-air.  
Hotaru, standing next to her slightly stunned form, stepped forward,  
around the bodies of the three unfortunate Sailorsenshi, as well as that of Jadeite, looking for Naiad who, for some reason, seemed to have disappeared.  
  
"Where did she go?" Hotaru scratched her head. When she received no reply from Makoto, she turned.  
  
Makoto was sitting on her haunches, turned away from her. She appeared to be toying with a straw or something she had found on the ground.  
  
"Are you okay?" Hotaru blinked. Makoto looked over her shoulder at her companion.  
  
"I dunno. I guess it depends on your definition of okay."  
  
----o  
  
**EYE OF THE STORM....**  
  
Naiad felt the crunch of soil underneath her feet as she landed upon the darkened plain. Staring up into the pale orange glow of the Wyccfaerian atmosphere, and shivering at the cold, she wondered if every night was like this, here.  
  
The door to the worlds of the dead had lead her to the very heart of the labyrinthine passageways, and she found herself on Wyccfaer, which was the last thing she had expected. Wyccfaer had been, throughout recorded history, about the last place anyone using the passageways had found time to visit.  
  
That was recorded history, however.  
  
So, Wyccfaer was where the passages were spawned. The hub of a universal network. A pan-dimensional network, even. She decided that this place might be worth her while to investigate.  
  
If she knew where to start. Hard to do when one was standing in the middle of an open field at the dead of night.  
  
----o  
  
**MEANWHILE....**  
  
Over the Valley of Souls flew the dirigible.... Long, sleek and gray, carrying a small basket of passengers to whatever destination awaited it.  
  
On the day side of Wyccfaer, five figures, clad in long, hooded cloaks that hid their regular clothing, wandered along a dirt road, hoping to reach some sizeable settlement. The two smallest stared up at the dirigible.  
  
"Shouldn't we try and wave those people down, or something?"  
Umi watched the vehicle slowly disappear with disappointment.  
  
"Puuu...." Said the small, white bunny thing named Mokosagi that sat on her shoulder.  
  
"It wouldn't matter if we did. Their destination is set, and they won't land for anyone. Not even people in a dire situation such as we." Usako looked down at Umi's depressed face with a kind smile, trying to reassure the smaller girl. "Do not worry, we shall find someone who shall be kind enough to aid us."  
  
"Either that, or we find another one of those goddamn doors."  
Natsagi growled. "I can't believe I got myself caught up in this. I have a job, you know?" She pushed her hood back and stared up at her green hair and cat's ears. "Ohhh... Look at me! I need a bath."  
  
Usako, Umi and Mokosagi looked at her, dubiously.  
  
"You're the one who got us caught up in all this." Umi pointed at the catgirl.  
  
"Puu." Agreed Mokosagi.  
  
"ME? You're accusing ME of getting us caught up in all of this?" Natsagi huffed. "I seem to remember those other two were the bright sparks.... Sailorjupiter and Sailorsaturn.... who started this wonderous venture. And where are they, eh? Nowhere to be seen. They're probably lounging away in some resort hotel on the other side of this planet."  
  
"Now now..." CereCere stepped between them. "Wouldn't it be more intelligent to see what awaits us than to carry on with this accusatory banter?" She pointed past Umi and Mokosagi towards what appeared to be a lake within a small valley.  
  
On the edge of the lake sat a group of buildings. Their hopes were momentarily raised by this discovery.  
  
"Is that a town?" Umi jumped up and down, trying to get a better look at the buildings, giving Mokosagi a bumpy ride. Usako was forced to place a calming hand on her shoulder.  
  
"They look pretty abandoned to me." Natsagi shrugged. "There is only one way to find out, wouldn't you say?"  
  
----o  
  
**STRANGERS ON A TRAIN....**  
  
Michiru entered the second sleeper car through the access door, not an easy task to do since the stop at Le'Kshier, since the railway track seemed to degenerate somewhat at this chosen moment in time.  
  
She still hadn't seen hide nor hair of the conductor. She wondered what the guy could be doing on a train with so few passengers. Strange thoughts entered her mind, mostly to do with the kinds of things people did when they became bored. Her face turned a bright shade of red as she pushed the thought from her mind.  
  
Slowly, she made her way along the corridor, listening for the sound of voices, peering into every cabin. She saw nobody. This line, with each passing moment, resembled a ghost train....  
  
The girl ran headlong into her. No ifs, no buts, just straight out WHAM! Michiru was about to peer into the last cabin, on the left hand side, when the dark-haired girl in the yellow kimono came charging out, drooling, saying something like "FOOOOOOOOOOD".  
  
For a few seconds, whilst lying on the corridor floor with this strange girl lying on top of her, she thought she'd just come face to face with a long lost Japanese cannibal. Regaining her composure, she managed a short moan as both she and the girl lifted themselves up, watched by the girl's bemused companion.  
  
"Gomen na sai, ojousama... Daijobu desu ka?" The girl put her hands on Michiru's shoulder as she rubbed her sore head.  
  
"Ojousama...." Michiru cleared her throat. "Ano... Hai, I think I'm going to be alright. Why did you run out of you cabin in that fashion. You could have hurt someone."  
  
"She did hurt someone." The tall, red-headed companion crossed her arms, putting on a cynical expression. The dark-haired girl turned to her companion and puffed up her face angrily.  
  
"Usashiiiiin!"  
  
"Usashin?" Michiru blinked, looking up at the other girl. She recognised the strange Usagi clone, immediately.  
  
She and Usashin never had much to do with each other in the past, but they had momentarily been forced into the position of allies.... Michiru, however, had difficulty in remembering when, and in what context, these events occured.  
  
Usashin also seemed to recognise her. "Sailorneptune-  
dono...." Usashin's dark-haired friend blinked for a moment.  
  
"Do you know this person?"  
  
"We did.... encounter each other at some stage in the not too distant past, Kaorusagi-dono."  
  
"Kaorusagi?" Michiru blinked at the girl. She momentarily felt a twinge of recognition, but it passed. It was obvious that, like Usashin, this Kaorusagi girl was yet another Usagi clone.  
  
"So, Sailorneptune-dono.... You have joined the fight against the Evil from Beyond?" Usashin stepped forward and helped both Michiru and Kaorusagi to their feet. Michiru blinked at Usashin's statement.  
  
"The Evil from Beyond? Who is that?"  
  
Usashin studied Michiru's puzzled expression thoughtfully. "I see.... So you have only just arrived here."  
  
"You can say that, again. Do you have any idea as to how I came to be on this planet. One moment I was.... Well, I was something, somewhere.... Umm... The next I was waking up at a railway station...."  
  
Usashin nodded. "Hai. The emplacement of destiny. Your death made you a toy for the energies that control the system of Wyccfaer, and it is now using you as a warrior to defend itself against the Evil."  
  
"I think I'm getting a headache." Michiru put her hand to her head once more. Kaorusagi looked at her with some concern.  
  
"Are you sure you're alright. I can get the conductor to break open the medicine cabinet."  
  
"Not that kind of headache." Michiru did her best to smile at the girl, rather embarassed at her forthrightness. She turned her attentions back on Usashin. "What was that you said about my death?  
I'm not dead. You can see that as clear as day."  
  
"Oh dear." Usashin shook her head.  
  
"She has a lot to learn." Kaorusagi crossed her arms and hmmmed in a thoughtful manner.  
  
"What? What have I got to learn?" Michiru looked from one to the next. Kaorusagi placed a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"I'll let Usashin tell you everything. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to find the food dispensing machines. I'm starving." And with that, Kaorusagi brushed past Michiru with a grin on her face.  
  
Michiru and Usashin watched her go, then Michiru turned back with a quizzical expression. Usashin sighed and gestured to her cabin. "Care to join me in some idle banter, hmmm?"  
  
The door on the opposite side of the corridor from Usashin and Kaorusagi's cabin swung open, and a strange, effeminate being, dressed in a long, flowing light green and gold cloak, with pale skin, green feline eyes, elven ears and large, curving gold horns, stared at them, crossly.  
  
"Look, will you please be quiet? Some of us are trying to get some sleep, here...." The being huffed and shut the door behind them as they stepped back inside.  
  
Michiru pointed at the door with a comical expression of shock and surprise on her face. Usashin closed her eyes and shook her head.  
  
"I think you have a lot to learn about alien races, my dear."  
  
**END OF PART 8  
  
S T O P -------------------------------------------------------------------  
**

**  
I Once Knew a Senshi Named Fred by DDFA**

I once knew a senshi named Fred

Who, surprisingly, turned out to be dead

"I'm dead." Said Fred. "Cos I was shot in the head

by a Youma whilst I was asleep in bed"

I looked at the senshi named Fred

And sadly shook my head

"How terrible!" I said. "For you to be dead

in bed with a head full of lead"

A smile came to the face of Fred

"It could have been worse." She said

"This lead in my head which made me dead

was actually meant for Ned."  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
**Next Chapter - "Acquaintances Unwanted"  
  
DDFA**  
  
Version 2.0 - 24th Jun 1998


	9. Part 9: Acquaintances Unwanted

Version 1.1 - 20th Jul 1998  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
**USAGI IS DEAD II DEAD IS USAGI **

**by DARK DAY FOR ANIME**  
  
Disclaimer - Sailormoon is owned by Takeuchi Naoko and Bandai, so these characters really belong to them, except ones I made up. This means I'm only using the Sailormoon characters for purposes less than benign.  
  
**-------------------------------------------------------------------**

**S T A R T **

-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
"This is it, folks! Over the top!"  
  
Take a Long Line - The Angels  
  
-------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
**STRANGERS ON A TRAIN....**  
  
"The Evil from Beyond? Who is that?" Michiru frowned as she looked from Usashin to Kaorusagi. She had met, briefly, with Usashin, in the past, but couldn't quite remember where, and had had very little to do with her.... It mostly puzzled her how similar the young samurai woman appeared to Usagi.... Her Princess....  
  
Michiru wondered where she might be, at this point in time. She wondered if time, itself, was not leaping around, attacked by the forces of.... The forces of....  
  
She kept thinking of chaos, but every time the image entered her mind, she would envisage the wraith-like image of the being that went by that name.... Chaos.... Chaos.... Maybe THAT was the Evil from Beyond that Usashin had mentioned. She puzzled over this.  
  
Usashin studied Michiru's puzzled expression thoughtfully. "I see.... So you have only just arrived here." Usashin had long become used to 'recent' arrivals on Wyccfaer. Both she and Kaorusagi had experienced the disorientation when they had, for no logical reason, found themselves on the planet, in the middle of nowhere.  
  
It was a plain, northwest of the Wyccfaerie capital of Shy.  
They were found wandering, lost and dazed by a Grimcrest farmer, who had been sowing the latest crop of the bizarre vegetable, whose origins were said to be somewhere in the polar regions of the planet Kaa....  
  
He had been understanding of their situation, and had taken them in. he and his wife had fed them a meal of roast Azen and some of the Grimcrest. Despite the dubiousness, on Usashin's part, of the colour and appearance of the food, Kaorusagi wasted no time on downing her serving and asking for seconds....  
  
It was quite an amiable entrance to Wyccfaer, but they knew that there had been some that were on the grim side of horrifying.  
  
"You can say that, again. Do you have any idea as to how I came to be on this planet. One moment I was.... Well, I was something, somewhere.... Umm... The next I was waking up at a railway station...." Michiru swallowed, her lack of experience with the two Usagi clones making her question somewhat stilted in execution.  
  
Usashin nodded. "Hai. The emplacement of destiny. Your death made you a toy for the energies that control the system of Wyccfaer, and it is now using you as a warrior to defend itself against the Evil." Yes, that should make everything clear to her,  
Usashin mused. As clear as mud.  
  
"I think I'm getting a headache." Michiru put her hand to her head once more. Kaorusagi took her arm, showing concern.  
  
"Are you sure you're alright. I can get the conductor to break open the train's emergency medical cabinet."  
  
"Not that kind of headache." Michiru did her best to smile at the girl, rather embarrassed at her forthrightness. She turned her attentions back on Usashin. "What was that you said about my death?  
I'm not dead. You can see that as clear as day."  
  
"Oh dear." Usashin shook her head.  
  
"She has a lot to learn." Kaorusagi stood back, crossing her arms and hmmmming in a thoughtful manner.  
  
"What? What have I got to learn?" Michiru looked from one to the next. Kaorusagi placed a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"I'll let Usashin tell you everything. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to find the food dispensing machines. I'm starving." And with that, Kaorusagi brushed past Michiru with a grin on her face.  
  
Michiru and Usashin watched her go, then Michiru turned back a painfully nonplused expression on her face. Usashin sighed and gestured to her cabin. "Care to join me in some idle banter, hmmm?"  
  
The door on the opposite side of the corridor from Usashin and Kaorusagi's cabin swung open, and a strange, effeminate being, dressed in a long, flowing light green and gold cloak, with pale skin, green feline eyes, elven ears and large, curving gold horns, stared at them, crossly.  
  
"Look, will you please be quiet? Some of us are trying to get some sleep, here...." The being huffed and shut the door behind them as they stepped back inside.  
  
Michiru pointed at the door with a comical expression of shock and surprise on her face. Usashin closed her eyes and shook her head.  
  
"Alien races, my dear.... There are quite a lot of them on Wyccfaer. Something else I'm going to have to teach you about de gozaru..."  
  
----o  
  
**Part Nine **

**Acquaintances Unwanted**  
  
----o  
  
**THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS**  
  
Hotaru and Makoto fell through the portal, crying out aloud their fear and shock, tears streaming from their eyes, and doing their level best to control their bladders.... It would be an embarrassing way to go if they were to wet themselves whilst falling to their deaths....  
  
Umi had only just introduced them to the small, white bunny thing she had named Mokosagi, when one of the nurses at the hospice they were visiting came screaming into the office, in which they had been discussing recent events, involving an attack on the hospice by anti-Usagi extremists.  
  
The extremists had come prepared with a device, called a Rubicon, thought to have been designed by Rubeus. The sole purpose of this device was to cancel out senshi powers.... Possibly to aid him in his revenge against them, no longer having the support of the Black Moon Family behind him.  
  
That revenge had failed, Rubeus dying at their hands.... And the last of the Rubicons were placed into the care of Hotaru's father, Tomoe Souichi, and the sole surviving Miko of the Moon Kingdom, Arachne Cobiale, who had also gone by the name Arachne Cervantes or Madame Scorpia.  
  
So they had thought.... It had been their hope that no more of the devices existed to plague them.... But this event had proved it to be otherwise.... The extremists, more a group of thugs than an organised militia, had obviously been given the Rubicon when they'd taken them on.... Natsagi, the catgirl Usagi clone member of the local police company, had told them that many of the devices had been appearing in the hands of known criminals and terrorists.  
  
Hotaru had speculated, before the interruption, that whomever had created them did so with the sole purpose of taking them down, and that those back in the growing township of Crystal Towers might be threatened....  
  
The nurse had been in a bad state, babbling something about a large, swirling vortex appearing in one of the patients' rooms. Naturally, being an officer of the law, and seeing dollar signs for her dedication to duty, Natsagi went charging off to take a look, quickly followed by Makoto, who never thought twice about things when she went charging off somewhere at the merest hint of a potential danger.... Hotaru growled in frustration.... It didn't seem to matter what kind of beating Makoto received, like the one at the hands of the extremist thugs, she had this innate desire to receive more.... Maybe she was suicidal, something that Hotaru could sympathise with.  
  
With reluctance, Hotaru ordered CereCere to stand guard over Usako and Umi whilst she did her best to stop the pair dropping themselves into a pile of dung about the size of the World Trade Center.... CereCere mumbled something about always having to stand guard whilst others had all the fun, quickly silenced when Hotaru shot her her best withering expression.  
  
Next thing she knew, she was tumbling through the vortex, having already seen Natsagi and Makoto being sucked up by the swirly thing. Behind it, she was sure she had seen a face she recognised.... That of the patient.... They hadn't seen her before, when Usako had done her rounds.... But the person bore the sharpest resemblance to.... With that short blue hair.... But the woman was too old to be her. It HAD been several years since they had seen her last, but still....  
  
With a whoosh, Hotaru hit the ground at the other end of the vortex with great speed, followed by Makoto, who, for some reason, ended up doubling back in the vortex, and had finished up behind her....  
  
Hotaru muttered something about Makoto going on a diet, as she watched hundreds of little chibi Saturns, holding chibi Silence Glaives, dance around the carked form of Mistress Nine, singing "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead".... She began to wonder if she was EVER going to get over that horrible little phase of her life, even whilst lying on the ground in a daze.  
  
As Makoto picked herself up off Hotaru's sprawled form, having had something soft to lessen the impact of her fall, she rubbed her head and stared around at the somewhat bleak and cold steppe-like landscape they had found themselves.  
  
At first, she thought it was her imagination, mixed in with the disorientation of being thrown about by the force of the vortex.... Whatever it was they had tumbled down. But as she blinked to clear her eyes, she began to realise that what she was seeing was real....  
  
The horizon went on forever, or seemed to.... It disappeared into a mist, leaving the effect of standing in a vast bowl, over which hung the pale light of an orange sky, stars becoming increasingly visible as the world's sun set slowly in the east.  
  
"Kami shit." Makoto mumbled as Hotaru sat up, also taking in the same scene with equal surprise.  
  
"Where the hell are we?" Hotaru rubbed her forehead, then looked upwards at the vortex, now disappearing into nothingness. "It's closing!"  
  
"What is?" Makoto blinked at her.  
  
"The thing we fell through.... It's closing behind us!" Hotaru pointed upwards, and Makoto followed the lead just in time to see the vortex vanish.  
  
"Kami shit!" She stood. "What the FUCK are we going to do, now?" She rubbed her arms and did a little dance. Not exactly dressed for the cold weather, she was beginning to feel the iciness that blew through with the wind.  
  
Hotaru got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. "Where is Natsagi?"  
  
"Who gives a toss about her.... I'm freakin' COLD." Makoto looked at her, painfully. Hotaru sighed.  
  
"Well, she could be anywhere. She might be in a worse-off situation than we are." Hotaru had to admit to herself that it was,  
indeed, frigid.  
  
"Do you really believe that? If we don't find somewhere to shelter, pretty soon, we're going to freeze to death." Makoto now had her hands clasped around her upper arms, shivering uncontrollably. Seeing her do this made Hotaru follow in sympathy.  
  
"Well, can you see anywhere where we can shelter?" Hotaru gestured around them, helplessly. Makoto closed her eyes and chattered her teeth.  
  
"No, all that is around us is a vast, flat, rolling valley,  
covered in tufts of snow and grass, disappearing into the misty distance. In short, we're fucked."  
  
"We can try teleporting ourselves from here." Hotaru suggested. Makoto sighed in exasperation.  
  
"WHERE?" She opened her eyes and stared into Hotaru's. "We don't know where the hell we are! If we do try a Sailor Teleport,  
we might send ourselves further into the cold regions of... of wherever it is we are." The wind blew again, and the both of them felt a little more of their bodyheat being torn from them. Hotaru swallowed, now thinking with some desperation.  
  
"We could always try and teleport ourselves to where Natsagi has found herself.... Or someone of similar familiarity. That's often the way we've done it before."  
  
"For one thing, we don't know if Natsagi is..." Makoto gestured around her. "...Is wherever we are. Secondly...." Makoto blinked for a moment, then frowned, looking over Hotaru's shoulder.  
  
"What? What is it?" Hotaru quizzed. When Makoto didn't respond, she, too, turned. What she saw made her shiver, and it wasn't from the cold this time.  
  
"Ah.... Atrenar Kesseile and Erebus Todhunter. What a strange place for us to meet, wouldn't you agree?" The blue-haired woman, dressed in the long, flowing blue dress stepped up to Makoto and Hotaru from the point at which she had appeared. Neither knew what to say to her. "What is wrong? You appear most disturbed to bare witness to my strange arrival.... OH! Of course, you have ceased to go by those names, is this not the truth? Now, what were they, again?" The woman rubbed her chin, staring into space.  
  
"I'm...." Hotaru began. "My name is.... Tomoe.... Hotaru.  
And this girl with me, here, is...."  
  
"Kino Makoto. Yes, of course. Now I remember. It's a damn disgrace that I am so incapable of memorising something as simple as a name.... But then, the manner in which I was told them was less than ideal. Do you know what it is like to meet a future life in the middle of the night, within your darkened bedroom? I must say,  
I was most put out by the event."  
  
"Ami?" Makoto swallowed, feeling tears coming to her eyes. "Ami-chan.... Is it... is it really you?" She stepped forward, her hands outstretched in a helpless, grasping manner, as if trying to clutch at what she perceived to be the truth. The woman took a breath.  
  
"I'm sorry, Atrenar.... I mean, Mako... how is it said? Mako...chan? Yes, I think that is it. Mako-chan. I am afraid I am not the Ami you remember. My name is Miste Kiele. I am the former life of Mizuno Ami. And I have been sent here, by her, to change the horrible destiny into which we have all fallen...."  
  
"What.... What do you mean?" Hotaru swallowed, not liking the way this strange, alternate version of Ami looked at the two of them. There was something slightly.... bent, for want of a better term, about her manner.... As if she was being forced to act in a way that was foreign to her.  
  
"I think it best that we discuss this in the surroundings of a warmer clime, don't you?" Miste smiled, then snapped her fingers. The three of them vanished from sight.  
  
Almost as soon as this had happened, another figure appeared on the cold steppe plain. Naiad was glad for her thick, dark blue miko robes as she felt the sharpness of the cold breeze. She was also somewhat pissed off for having missed the trio.  
  
"Damn.... How many times am I going to fail to bump into them? This is starting to get monotonous." She closed her eyes, clenching her teeth. "You must be laughing at me, you freak of a creature.... But I'll stop you, yet...." She turned her head and looked into the sky as the sound of a deep-throated laugh softly rose over the hollow sound of the wind....  
  
----o  
  
**BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS**  
  
"Damn, that was a close one." The helmsman looked back at his captain as the passenger liner steered clear of the iceberg.  
  
"Yes, just a little further in that direction and we would have hit the dashed thing."  
  
"It was good that someone, at the very least, was keeping a lookout on things." The helmsman sighed. "These conditions are most difficult to deal with."  
  
"Yes, indeed." The captain turned to the young, blond-haired woman who stood in the doorway to the ship's wheelhouse. "We have much to thank you for, Miss...?"  
  
"Serenity." The Youma Usagi smiled. "You can call me Serenity." She looked down and shifted the flamboyant train of her long dress, enjoying the opportunity to play dress up. "It was most fortunate that I and my companion were taking up the view of the dark seas from the deck."  
  
The captain nodded. "It would have been a disaster for this ship to have been damaged on its maiden voyage."  
  
The Youma Usagi nodded and turned aside. "I must be on my way. Leonardo is waiting for me." With one last flash of a smile, she disappeared from the doorway.  
  
As she stepped out onto the deck once more, the young man who had been waiting for her jogged over from the railings, an excited expression on his face. "We DID it. We really did it!"  
  
"Yes, Leonardo, my dear, we did it."  
  
"I'm glad I decided to come time travelling with you, rather than continue with a dead-end acting career...."  
  
"Well, you know what they say. Travel broadens the mind. And besides, it was a hoot being given the opportunity to bed you first and become the envy of women the world over." She smiled at his blushing, shy expression....  
  
Alright, Celine, she thought to herself, let's see ya turn that crappy, over-romantic piece of dung into a hit single, now!  
  
----o  
  
**MYSTERIOUS ACQUAINTANCES**  
  
Makoto and Hotaru sat on the old sofa, looking a little worse for wear, as Miste sat herself, poisedly, in the armchair on the other side of the room. Silence, punctuated by the noise of factory sirens and machinery, passed between them.  
  
Having been transported from the cold plain by Miste's obviously greater control over her senshi powers, they found themselves in what appeared to be a two up, two down flat in the middle of a slightly industrial working class area of a city that Miste described as the capital city of the world they had arrived on.  
  
The walls, ceiling, carpet and furnishings of the flat were aged and stained, giving Miste cause to be embarrassed. "I apologise, sincerely, for the tardy nature of our accommodation. Twas the best I could find on the short notice to which I was given."  
  
Makoto stared at Miste, dubiously, lounging back into the sofa with her legs and arms crossed. Hotaru was more keen than she to listen to what Miste had to say, now sitting forward, somewhat. Miste looked from one to the next.... How much they reminded her of Atrenar and Erebus. She despised that pair, despite often using them for her political purposes....  
  
Atrenar.... The overbearing bully of the senshi, her head as hot as it was empty. Miste had never had anything to do with her.... Every time she had come into contact with her, there was just this automatic, perhaps autonomic, response of hatred within her. It was like a pure, instinctive hate.... A defense mechanism that would go mad every time they were within calling distance of each other.  
  
The hatred felt good. Miste could never understand why, but that hatred seemed to excite her, and simultaneously make her feel ill.... Like an intellectual antibody, preparing to kill that which threatens it. The first time she had met Atrenar, the two of them had shaken hands. Almost immediately, Miste knew the woman was using the gesture to test out her resolve.  
  
The disconcertion that Miste displayed brought a twisted smile to Atrenar's face. From that moment, onwards, Miste dedicated her life to using Atrenar for her personal gain, with the ultimate intention of bringing the woman to an early grave, once she had what she wanted.  
  
Erebus had been different, but no less hated, by Miste. Erebus was successful in gaining the candidacy of Saturn, and thus was to be sealed away in case she was to be needed. The thought of someone with such power, hanging like a silent noose over her dreams and aspirations brought the very worst out of her, not helped by the fact that, in their one and only encounter the black-haired harpy had tried to out-intellectualise her.  
  
A battle of wits.... Erebus had been top of her class in many fields, including quantum physics and debatable theology and philosophy. In that one meeting, Erebus took the opportunity to pick Miste's mind, in front of the old Queen Serenity. Miste felt debased by this, and stumbled to keep up with Erebus's train of thought.  
  
Feeling that she had had her massive intellect shamed within the court of the kingdom, she became determined never to face or relate to Erebus again, and was relieved when the young woman was finally sealed away. But she was still there.... Not a conscious,  
interactive Erebus, but she was there all the same.  
  
The young Serenity would often try to calm Miste's defensiveness and paranoia. She had been the only one to understand Miste's feelings, and had had the power to break through her massive wall of personal defence. There had been moments when Miste genuinely felt love for young Serenity.... An emotion she thought she had long lost through the traumatic experiences of her early childhood.... Now that love of her life was to be denied the succession to the throne....  
  
Miste took a breath and calmed herself. That was as things were supposed to be. Tranquility's life was to be short, and Serenity would, eventually, succeed her.... There was no need for the manipulation, the hatred...  
  
But it all came flooding back as she stared at the pair, who looked back at her with those SAME expressions.... The expressions the original Atrenar and Erebus had had when they first met her. Distrust and contempt. She even thought she could detect a slight smile on the face of Atre... Makoto, she had to keep reminding herself. These were NOT Atrenar and Erebus.... They had had a different childhood, and contained uniquely different personas. They were NOT the same. Not the same....  
  
"So, are you going to tell us why you dragged us halfway across the universe?" Makoto huffed.  
  
They ARE the same.... Are the same are the same are the same.... Miste controlled the resonating thought, clenching her fists. "I'm sorry, I was thinking.... About you... About your past lives."  
  
"Really? Good to hear. Would you like to answer my question?" Makoto took a breath and looked aside. Hate me hate me hate me hate me hate me hate me hate me.... Miste felt the shiver run through her before Hotaru chided Makoto.  
  
"You don't have to be so rude to her, you know."  
  
"Alright. ALRIGHT. I'm sorry, okay?" Makoto huffed with annoyance. Miste swallowed and smiled, nervously.  
  
"That's alright.... I would expect you to be somewhat put out by my methods, but I wasn't given much in the way of choice." She swallowed again as both Hotaru and Makoto turned to her.  
  
"You said something about changing our current destinies..."  
Hotaru prompted her, waving a hand in her direction. Miste looked at the hand.... It was like an insulting signal to her.... Like the black-haired harpy was giving her the come on....  
  
"Uh, yes.... It would appear that our destinies have been skewed, in a direction that wasn't meant to exist, by an outside force...."  
  
"What kind of force would this be?" Makoto squinted at her.  
Miste imagined laser beams coming from those eyes, boring into her skull, trying to destroy her, mind and body....  
  
"A... A force that has no name, no true consciousness, yet exists within every corner of the universe.... An immense force of destruction." Miste went silent as Hotaru stood, surprised by the young woman's sudden movement. Hotaru slowly paced across the floor of the lounge room, towards the window, where she peered out through Venetian blinds at the drab exterior of the cobbled street.  
  
"Chaos." Hotaru said, eventually, turning to Miste. "You're talking about Chaos, aren't you."  
  
Miste nodded. "Yes. Chaos is what it likes to be called."  
  
**END OF PART 9**

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**S T O P**

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Next Chapter - "Spirit Without"

Fresh from the stale desk of DDFA


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